Data Systems has a full-time opening for a good problem solver with a solid programming background and a strong interest in designing, coding and supporting accounting applications.

We have an immediate need for an entry-level programmer but would consider creating a position for the right candidate with more experience in software development or  accounting.

Data Systems is a worker-owned corporation and candidates with an  interest in being a business owner are encouraged to apply.

Job Requirements
Work with senior analysts to design software for new applications, support and enhance existing products written in the fourth generation programming language PRO-IV. We will provide training in our development environment. Other useful skills for this position include experience in accounting, software sales, system administration on Linux, Unix, or Win2000,  database administration, Java, Ruby, PHP, or web design.

Email resumes to datasystems@datasystems.coop

Every time I see a reply on a forum, listserv or a blog comment that starts with "Err..." or "ummm...", it translates in my brain as "how stupid are you anyway?" and reeks of arrogance.

I've always wondered if it's intentional and if the person writing this realizes the effect it has...

Generally I give them the benefit of cluelessness.

--copied and pasted from hiring company --

Pad Print Machinery in East Dorset Vermont

Software Developer’s Dream Job

Here’s your chance become an integral member of a small team now developing an entirely new set of software designs.   Conceive and design software to dynamically create or manipulate graphic image data.  Explore the fascinating real world of digital color management.   Experiment with dithering algorithms for error-reduction in our printing processes.  Conceive and design new software to handle Customer product using robots. 

Our software will control an entirely new line of industrial equipment utilizing piezoelectric, drop-on-demand, ink jet and material deposition printing technologies. 

We are a solid, industrial manufacturing company based in the beautiful Green Mountain state of Vermont, expanding into the rapidly growing frontier of industrial digital ink jet machines.

Experience

And you? You have a minimum 3 or more years experience with a .NET language, or 5 or more years experience with C++ and 1 or more years experience with a .NET language, and experience with development of software for industrial applications.

Additionally, you have the ability to conceive and implement object oriented designs and have demonstrated experience with one or more techniques for communicating and modeling software requirements, component interfaces and software designs (UML, written user scenarios/use cases, design patterns, etc).

Specific experience with any one or more of the following a PLUS:

            -  motion control and related safety logic

            -  development using QNX real time operating system

            -  digital image processing

            -  test driven design/development

            -  design and execution of UI usability studies.

BS in an Engineering discipline or Computer Science a PLUS.  

The job

The software to be developed and maintained will provide image processing, motion control, and ink supply maintenance functions. Over the life of this product line, software will be repeatedly adapted/customized for unique printing and product handling applications.

As part of this job, you will: perform design analyses which identify at least one alternate design and rationale for the final design selection of any new major software functionality to be implemented; implement software solutions consistent with agreed requirements and software design; on occasion ‘bolt together' existing software products as needed (getting incompatible platforms to work together and creating code to link them); utilize a system of source code control (Seapine SCM); continue development of existing systems by analyzing and identifying areas for modification and attend company-sponsored training in order to keep up to date with advances in the Industry as it relates to software design and development, particularly as it relates to the data processing needs of a digital printing business.  

Does this sound like your idea of fun? Then you are the kind of person who will “fit” into the team we are building, and the company you will be a part of. We are a lively, caring group that is dedicated to customer service, quality and teamwork.

For more information contact:

Laura Kwapien, Senior Software Engineer (lkwapien@padprintmachinery.com)

RESOURCE SYSTEMS GROUP is a multi-disciplinary, employee-owned consulting firm specializing in the planning, analysis, and management of business, infrastructure and natural resources. We serve clients who share our belief that high-quality, objective analysis is a prerequisite to resolving complex problems. More than just analysts, scientists, and engineers, we’re communicators – our study results are clear, concise, and directly applicable to a client’s particular questions and challenges. Our solutions are creative and grounded by 20 years of experience with clients as large as federal government agencies and Fortune 500 companies or as small as neighborhood interest groups and local municipalities.  Recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in Vermont” for the 2^nd consecutive year and named as one of the “Best Workplaces for Commuters”, RSG employees enjoy excellent benefits, flexible hours and opportunities for advancement. We are an equal-opportunity/affirmative action employer.  Please visit www.rsginc.com for more information on Resource Systems Group. 

Associate – Software Development

White River Junction, VT

This position involves working in the Technology Group, supporting the firm’s software and analysis needs. The primary focus will be developing fully dynamic web-based solutions from interface to business logic to back end database design. We are looking for someone who is organized, resourceful, and analytical to join our team.

·         Bachelor’s degree with emphasis in computer science or a related field

·         Practical experience in the following areas:

o    Web Development in HTML and CSS

o    Database programming in SQL

o    Modern object-oriented programming (e.g. C#, VB.Net, Java)

Please send resume and cover letter to Recruiting Director at employment@rsginc.com and indicate Associate Software Development in the subject heading.

Roger Jennings pointed out this quote from Dare:

"...even though I’ve been using C# for the past five or six years, I feel like I have to relearn the language from scratch to fully understand or be able to take advantage the LINQ features."

which lines up with my previous post talking about what it seems to take to learn LINQ well and comparing it to the 10 years I have spent absorbing TSQL.

WHen I got VIsta, I jsut started using it. None of this studying business for me, no sir. SO of course, I have no idea where many functions are or how to use so many of the new features (or even what they are). I find them by chance or necessity or just osmosis.

One thing I never really knew was what happened to the Run command. I figured maybe they decided it was a bad idea because it used to be up front and center in XP and earlier version fo windows

But I knew where the "Command Prompt" was in Vista, so I never bothered looking for the Run option.

Just now I was looking for the Magnifier function - I know I saw it once (again, by accident), so I opened up the start menu, then accessories, and what did I notice? My old friend "Run"!

So back to the Magnifier. I found it easily enough using the Search (see I know a few things in Vista), but that still didn't tell me where in the menu it lives. But I also am familiar with one of my favorite little Vista utilities, the "Open File Location" option in the context menu, which helped me see that the Magnifier is in Ease of Access

Now, if only I could remember what I wanted the Magnifier for to begin with!

As per Jaroslaw Kowalski on the EF team:

"We are working with SQL Server CE team to get an updated version of their provider that will be compatible with EF Beta3 out soon. It is a matter of weeks"

source: MSDN forums

Roger collected all of his Visual Studio Magazine covers (that is, those issues where articles written by him were featured on the cover) in one blog post. It's quite impressive!

Thanks to Mike Taulty for keeping me in the loop. For some reason, when linking directly to the video, the sound was wierd, so here's the MSN video site where you'll have to watch a 5 second ad first. It's worth it!

This is funny and it is always a great reminder to see Bill Gates sense of humor and his ability to laugh at himself. I think when we had the meeting with him last month, none of us were thinking of this - we were all so serious. Sheesh!

Roger Jennings writes about issues with finding examples of complex LINQ to XML queries. Boy have I been there and done that. One of the problems with learning LINQ is that you have two options

1) learn LINQ very deeply so you can do what you need

or

2) learn by example

With LINQ, I tend to start with a need, do what I can until I hit a wall, then look for examples that will help me and use them to learn even more. But it means that there needs to be a LOT of examples.

I have often likened learning LINQ as well as learning Entity SQL to learning T-SQL. Learning T-SQL has, for me, been an evolution which has occurred over some ten years. I still have to look up the Cast & Convert topic 99% of the time in the docs whenever I need to convert a datetime to a desired char format.

Even if there were 1001 examples, I know that there will always be something I want to do that I can't find an example for and will have to rely on gaining a better understanding of LINQ in order to accomplish it.

Well, not 101, but after spending over 15 hours trying to fix a damaged file, I learned a LOT and thought I would share it here.

[A New DevLife Post]

As a woman who is a little curvier from the waist down than I'd like to be, you think I would hail this report, "Are Curvy women smarter?" , as "justfication"  - "hey, it just because I'm smart!" (and maybe more potato chips in my future ) . But it seems pretty ludicrous to me, especially considering some of the many brilliant women I know who are slim & trim.

Entity Framework easily supports mapping to read stored procedures when the query results match up with an existing entity in the model. If your query results don't, then you have to create a new read only entity and entity set in teh CSDL and a new "fake table" entity and entity set in the SSDL and then you can do the mappings. (I show how to do that in this blog post.)

Chris Snyder found a new twist. What if the result matches an entity, but some of the fields inthe result have been renamed? Unless you wanted to create a read only entity to match it. But then you won't get the change tracking benefits of a entity with a key.

Jonathan Carter was very interested in Entity Framework and Astoria. Last month, he started working for Microsoft as an Technical Evangelist. So he gets paid to share his excitement about these and other .NET technologies.

Guy Burstein was very interested in Entity Framewrok and Astoria writing lots of posts about the two topics. Today Guy announced that he has started working for Microsoft Israel with the Developer & Platform and Adoption team. He too says he has found the sweet spot of getting paid to do something that you are good at and love.

Congrats!!

Jessica Fosler reminded me of a cool article on 3D printers I read this fall. Read more...

[A new DevLife post]

Well, that would be -0.3 degrees. Good day to stay inside and work even thought it's beautiful and sunny out with still llots of fabulous powder over at Mad River. To some it just means a better day to skin up the mountain than to sit in the chair lift up high in the air with the bitter cold wind blowing in your face. Brrr.

According to Chris Bowen's blog, there will be a TechNet and MSDN event in Burlington on February 26th.

The afternoon MSDN event will be two sessions covering:

MSDN:  "Explore IIS7, ASP.NET and Tackle Web Security"

Check out the latest coding solutions with like-minded developers at MSDN Events. Witness the evolution of IIS and see why IIS7 is our most extensible, manageable and secure Web platform on record. You'll learn how to extend application services - including membership, role management and navigation - from ASP.NET and how to consume them from a wide variety of clients. As a special bonus, we're also tackling the biggest security risks and clueing you in to the top counter measures available for Websites and Web applications of all kinds. Don't miss these free, live sessions that are really on your wavelength.

Register for the MSDN event at www.msdnevents.com

The morning TechNet event is also about security:

Today I did what people think that I do frequently, though it's actually (and sadly) not common. I went skiing. That's right  - on a work day! RIch and I took off at 8:30 and didn't get home until about 3:30. We hooked up with a fellow Vermont.NETter and awesome tele skiier who commented on how many people must have called in sick that morning (which made Rich and I , both self-employed, laugh about being the only ones not getting paid to ski), and spent most of the day in the woods. I'm a crappy skiier in the woods (always worried about those trees!) but I still love being in there. It's not pretty, but I can get through it.

Mad River got about 2 feet of this fluffy stuff on Monday and Tuesday.So we had epic powder (western style powder, deep and light and fluffy) and I wasn't going to miss it. Even if it was 0 degrees out. Brr! 

My parents continue to send me pictures of the puppies to put on their website.

The first litter , which was born on Nov 22  - the amazing litter of 17 - has puppies that are over 10 lbs. already. They had their first cookies today. Their eyes have been open for a while.

The second and third litter, born Dec 7 & 8th, are still small, but they are getting fatter and cuter (is it even possible?) every day.

While there are lots of awesome new features in VB9 and C#3.0, everything has taken a back seat to LINQ. I am, however, growing more and more fond of extension methods. Read more...

[A new DevLife post]