Jan/080
Programmer’s Portfolio
I have been editing this post for two days now. I was going to write more about this, but I didn’t have anything else than obvious things to say. 
Seeing who you are and what have you done should be simple. If you really want to get a job from software industry you should have a proper portfolio.
Check out my portfolio. The style has always been the same simple one, I have just added more content. It contains just text and links. I’m sure it was one of the reasons why I got a job.
In my portfolio I have always tried to showcase how much I have improved since last project or year. Being professional programmer requires learning new things all the time, people who can’t do that should think about changing their career. Showing how much you have improved is important as it will show two things :
- You are able to learn and you want to learn.
- One of the most important things, it tells that you are motivated!
So what I recommend you to do when creating portfolio :
- Do not bloat it with screenshots, try to keep those behind the links.
- Keep it as simple as possible.
- When adding content in there remember the links to project pages.
- Keep it easily accessible
- For example like I did, a web page.
That’s it for my part. If you have some experiences of your own, please share them.
Jan/081
Can your software handle the stress?
Testing is one of the most important things that you should do when developing software. I already talked about testing, but I didn’t cover stress testing it. To read the earlier article you must register to Tips & Tricks service.
Stress testing is as important as any other testing. Few points why you want to do stress testing :
- Whatever somebody does, you don’t want your software to crash.
- Usability – if you can’t stress test it, maybe the user interface is a bit too complex.
- Test features.
Test the unexpected cases, you can’t write all of these in unit tests. Stress testing is way to do loads testing at once without manually writing each test case. Also remember the “it cannot happen” – case, which you should always test as it probably will happen.
So, how to do it?
‘Nothing Real’
Make stress tester to call randomly any of your functions with random values -> it should not crash!
Partly Doing The Right Thingie
Make stress tester to use templates (use cases) and call them in random order with random data. In here you want to be testing the result as you can affect to it. For example you have a template renderPixelToMiddle and while calling it you feed different screen resolutions, in the end you should always be able to read the pixel from x(screenWidth/2) and y(screenHeight/2) – also remember to test the reverse, there should not be pixels anywhere else.
Note : stress tester is sometimes referred as smoke tester.
I really recommend trying to do a simple stress tester for your software to see how much it can help. I bet that you’ll find problems if you haven’t done it. Have fun! 
Jan/083
About Personal Development
Like the topic says, I was just thinking about my own personal development : how much have I improved my skills during the last year?
I like to measure my personal development by looking back one or two years and the comparing to this day. I think this is a very good way to do it and it has worked for me. One thing that I always think about when I meet new colleagues is how much did they improve their skills during the last year?
As far as my own experience tells me, the amount of those who improved a lot is pretty small actually. Which is a shame. We would have more talented people if everybody would keep improving their skills. Instead of saying they don’t have time or they don’t need to? Yeah, right.
Take me for example, I have a 7 months old daughter, a job, this website, hobby programming projects, and so on. And still I find the time to improve my skills, why?
Because I try to improve all the time. When I do something I just ask myself : how can I do this better? (how to do this faster? how to improve the quality of my work? …)
Also if I would have to interview a programmer to some positions, the first thing I would like to know is : how much did he/she improve during the last 1-2 years?
Anyway, keep improving!
Jan/080
Learning Marketing : Chapter Two
Tips & Tricks service has been out for a few days now and it seems like I’m getting some traffic! I’m nearly done with my 500 unique visitors goal.
First of all, something you should check :
I also did some improvements for the site, I’m pretty sure this template still has some bugs in it, but I already fixed some of them. Thanks to Captain P for great feedback and for helping me out with this page!
New Marketing Ways
Forums, I’m currently active on a few forums, not doing direct marketing. Instead I just added link to my signature. Hope it works.
Paid service :
- Google AdWords – text link ad.
- Yahoo! Search Marketing – text link campaign.
- And I finally got my StumbleUpon – campaign accepted.
So loads of interesting stuff going on.
I’ll be releasing new article to Tips & Tricks at the end of this week.
Jan/080
First 10 Users Get One Month For Free! (5 Left)
All you have to do to save 4 dollars and get access to Tips & Tricks service for a month :
- Register yourself as a user.
- I will remove the first month payment from your user as soon as I see your registration, after that you’ll be able to login!
Jan/086
Learning Marketing : Chapter One
I decided to start writing about my marketing experiences here, as marketing is a new area for me and there is a lot to be learn – a lot mistakes to be made.
I have been trying to market my Tips & Tricks service for a few days now, which is my first web based service, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t work right away. And it seems like it won’t be an easy job to do the marketing.
What I tried
I sent submitted link to my site to www.reddit.com programmers side with topic : “New Programming Tips&Tricks Service Launched!”. I received 1 up and 3 down points and 2 comments, one saying : “This is a joke, right?”. Was that because of bad topic, not enough interesting or just a user that didn’t like it (everybody can’t like it)?
Sent a post to DigitalPoint forums about launching my service.. and received a warning. Should have read the FAQ more carefully, I was not allowed to yet make posts with links on them – I thought the restriction was only for the Review forum (where you can post sites for review).
I sent the post to a couple forums also, didn’t receive any feedback yet.
Then at last I created a StumbleUpon – campaign, I hope that works and will bring more users here.
Conclusion
My goal for this month is to get 500 unique visitors and that will be filled, that means that I have done something right, right?
Any ideas for marketing are more than welcome.
Jan/082
Test Your Code
In the earlier tip I was talking about fixing and testing your stuff right away. Now, the testing part is very interesting and a large subject.
Jan/080
Fix it now!
If you aren’t familiar with the saying, don’t leave broken windows behind you, then this tip is just for you.
Jan/082
Tips & Tricks Service
Quick Overview of what is going on.
I will be starting to write an e-book on Programming Tips & Tricks as I have already been asked to do that couple of times, and it would not be fair that only those who buy e-book would have to pay for the Tips & Tricks. So I will be launching a new Tips & Tricks service.
What you should know :
- Registering to Tips & Tricks service costs only 4 dollars per month.
- At least 4 Tips & Tricks articles in a month.
- You will get access to all Tips & Tricks articles.
How to register :
- There is a link to register page under the Links category on right.
- After you have registered you will get email with your username and password.
- First time you Login you will be directed to PayPal service for 1 month payment. It means that you will be able to use Tips & Tricks service for a month and then you will be asked again if you want to pay for a month or not.
The first private tip has already been posted!
Also 3 completely free tips available without login!
Jan/081
Leaving SolidRain
Yeah, after a year of hard work at SolidRain I cannot anymore continue working with
their cool space game project.
At the same time I’ll have to inform that the Dawn Bringer 3D technology is frozen from now on. It has been an eternity project and has
grown in to a massive engine with own tools and file formats. But the thing is that I need to leave the old stuff behind me and
move on. Besides, I can work on really cool engines on my day job now!
After all it was a very good project for me : as I was the only programmer I learned loads of new tricks to share.