Eric Maino

Moving My Blog

emaino — Fri, 27 May 2005 05:57:00 GMT

Well since I have joined Microsoft I thought it was only reasonable to move my blog over to blogs.msdn.com so from now on you will be able to find my posts at http://blogs.msdn.com/ericmai.

Day 1 - Microsoft NEO

emaino — Tue, 10 May 2005 03:41:00 GMT

Well today was my first day as a Microsoft employee and overall it went pretty well. The day was full of power point presentations explaining the handbook you recived in the morning. I think Tim did a great job trying to get people involved and talking thoughout the day. I will write a bit more about my experience as it gets more exciting :-)

Josh Holmes, Microsoft MVP!

emaino — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 17:18:00 GMT

It's my great pleasure to announce that Josh Holmes has been named a Microsoft Visual C# MVP. Congratulations!

NewsGator Plug-in for Community Server

emaino — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:46:00 GMT

I developed a plug-in last night really quick so that I could post to community server blogs.

Currently it supports:

Multiple Community Server Sites
All blogs you have access too on the CS site
Posts and Articles
Categories

I am going to post the project to GotDotNet or SourceForge later today, before I post the project and submit it to NewsGator are there any other necessary features you can think of before it's out the door?

A present for your system administrator

emaino — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:15:00 GMT

A friend (Brian Desmond) just pointed this shirt out to me and I thought of many system administrators I know. If your system administrator has a birthday or some other special event coming up chip in and make their day!

Multilple Blog NewsGator Plugin

emaino — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 20:53:00 GMT

On Tuesday I decided I would try NewsGator again as my blog reader. I was noticing that I already spend most of my time in Outlook during the day so why not read my feeds in there too. I tried NewsGator really early on, but decided that it just wasn’t for me at the time. This time was different. I have fell in love with NewsGator and it has been making my blog reading much easier over the past two days.

I started looking at how I could post to my blog from within Outlook as well, since NewsGator happened to have the posting option. I looked at the plugins that are provided on the NewsGator site and found one that works with .Text. This was great, but didn’t solve all of my problems. I actually tend to post to a few .Text blogs during the day and I wanted to have this option from within Outlook. I began searching, but didn’t find anything… so I decided to write my own plugin. I have wrapped the current .Text plugin within my own which allows you to configure and post to various .Text blogs very easily. It doesn’t support posting the same thing to multiple blogs though this would be possible.

I had thought about releasing the plugin, but figured there probably aren’t too many people out there that would find this too useful. If I am wrong and you would like to see such a plugin let me know, I will wrap it with an installer and distribute it.

Hockey Moments...

emaino — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 18:27:00 GMT

A friend just showed this to me and all I have to say is wow! I have seen quite a few hockey videos, hot shots, etc.. This one is deffinetly at the top:

http://www.hockeycoachboards.com/bbs/forum2/uploads/Hisey.wmv

Local Bands In Michigan

emaino — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 00:22:00 GMT

A friend of mine just launched a site that helps discover new and upcoming bands in Michigan. If you get a chance and are looking for local bands in or around the area check out Blow The Gaff.

Becoming the C# Blogger

emaino — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:01:00 GMT

While I haven't sat down with my PM yet to discuss my goals over the next year or so at Microsoft, one of my own personal goals over the 12 months is to become known as the C# Blog or C# Blogger (or at least one of the top 10). I am currently in a very unique position as a C# MVP moving to the C# team, I know what community is all about and I also know what MVPs and others are looking for from us internally.

Many of the people that have heard I am going to Microsoft are bummed, because they feel they are going to be losing a great community advocate. Let me make this statement in public that my view of the community and my aspirations to be involved will not change. I would expect to see a slump this summer with the move, new job, and wedding, but let me assure you that my evangelic passion will rise to the challenge and continue to drive forward.

Anyhow begin to look for lots of great C# posts from me in the future. Please also feel free to ask lots of questions as I would be more then happy to follow these up with some form of a write up.

It was a tough decision...

emaino — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:05:00 GMT

This morning I finally made the decision on whether or not I would accept the offer from Microsoft. Catie and I talked about this for a long time, we discussed the pros and con and really both areas are great but it came down to a few little things.We just wanted to be sure that we were making the right decision for the both of us and not one just one of us. The trip out to this area was great for Catie she really loves the area and was happy to get to meet with some of the people I may have been working with, overall she had a great time but part of her was still really sad about making this move... anyhow after we talked about it she agreed Redmond would be the best place. I have accepted the offer and will be moving to the area shortly after I graduate. :-D

Closer To Redmond

emaino — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:32:00 GMT

Yesterday was a very good day. Catie (my fiancé) and I arrived at SeaTac around 11:15 and then we had a pretty full day ahead of us. We had lunch with two good friends of mine, James and Tracy, then Catie met with the Director or Special Education at Northshore School District. Catie's meeting went very well and she feels much better about making to the move. To top the day off we had dinner at Spazzo in Bellevue with Rusty Miller (my future boss) and Kartick (my future lead). It was a long yet fulfilling day and we are getting closer to my acceptance of the offer. On the agenda for today is the apartment search...

My Thoughts on Your Questions

emaino — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 15:51:00 GMT

In a recent post about my interview experience I was asked to tell the recruiter what I was most proud of so far in my career and the answer was my current track record. This answer has generated quite a few emails and I thought I would try to address most of them in this post, rather the replying back to each person individually.

What do you do to prepare for an interview?
I have never been the type of person to cram for an exam or interview, and this is because I feel that if I don't know the material well enough walking through that door in the morning, there is nothing that I am going to learn the night before that's going to really be beneficial.

One could argue the point above that I could memorize the complexity of certain algorithms, the way to explicitly solve a problem, or even the answer to every MS question I can find on the internet, and this is true, but HOW DOES IT HELP? In my mind it doesn't. You are only putting on a show for the person that is interviewing you and all you are doing is reciting data. If the company wants something to recite data, the can write a program to scour Google for data. The company is interested in YOU and the knowledge and wisdom YOU have, not the raw data.

The night before an interview I always just do what I love doing. The night before the MS interview it was solving a FreeBSD LDAP authentication problem with Windows Server 2003 and Active Directory.

Are there any books that you read or review before the interview?
The simple answer to this question is no. I do try to read a lot of books when I have time, but lately I have been very busy. The most recent books I have been reading are Threat Modeling, Object Thinking, Code Complete 2, and Programming the Windows Driver Model.

Assuming you have been in the situation with multiple offers at once, how have you dealt with salary negotiations?
This is very true that I have been in the described situation and I have actually never taken advantage of it. The primary reason is that, I look at the value I will be bringing to the company and the value the company will give to me. Obviously if the company did not make a good initial offer then they really do not see the value in me and this may not be a company I really want to work for. This is not to say I will always work for the company that pays more either, I will work for the company that together we provide the most value to the customer.

The Problems

emaino — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 00:55:00 GMT

Here is a list of the questions that I received through out the day during my interview. These questions are in no particular order (other then the order I remembered them).

If you were given the assignment to test a keyboard, how would you test it?
If you were given the assignment to test a clock, how would you test it?
Let's say that you are a building inspector and have been assigned to this newly constructed 100 story building. Your last job is to test the elevator systems in this building, how would you perform this task? Please lay it out in test plan form
You are an employer of a company and you are in the process of hiring a new employee. You must pay this employee in gold at a rate of 1 oz. per day. This employee will work for you for 7 days and must be paid every day, no more and no less then 1 oz. per day. You happen to have one 7 oz. bar of gold and may make two cuts on this piece of gold. What cuts would you make in order to successfully complete the task?
You are given lengths of string that will always burn in 60 minutes from one end to the other. You have been tasked with measuring 45 minutes using these string how would you do it? Now imagine that the strings will burn from one end to the other in 60 minutes but they will not always burn at the same rate. Sometimes the strings will burn faster or slower at parts. How would you measure the time now?
You are given 5 colored objects and need to arrange them in a circular fashion. How many unique ways can you arrange these objects?
Please write a function that will determine if a number passed into it is a perfect number. How would you test this?
You have been asked to write a program that will determine the winner in an election. If given N candidate and given a step of M, you must remove every Mth candidate from the list wrapping around when reaching the end. If given N=7 and M=3, the result would be 4. What data structures might you consider for such a problem? Why? Now write the code using data structure X.
Please write a function that will determine and return the duplicate strings given two lists of strings. How would you test this? What is the complexity of this function?
Given a track that extends infinitely in both directions you need to write a program that two trains will execute in order to make them collide. Both of these trains start on the track at a spot marked with an S. You have four instructions that you may execute, Move Left, Move Right, GOTO and SGOTO. GOTO will go to a label in your code and SGOTO will be executed when the train is over an S mark. Write the program. A picture may be helpful.. I might post one later...
Please write a function that will reverse the words in a string. Describe how you would test this code

Example: The sky is blue. -> .blue is sky The
Given a two dimensional array. If you encounter a row that is full of data, shift everything above this row down one position, effectively replacing the row and adding a blank row at the top. Write a function that will do this in place. A picture would also help with this one as well...

Lessons While Driving Home

emaino — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 23:31:00 GMT

First I have finally decided that GM does not have any idea how to produce a windshield or at least does not know how to determine who a good producer is. GM windshields are horrible. first I have never seen any other manufactures car have so many broken windshields. Secondly GM windshields end up getting this nasty film on the window that makes it useless to see out of when driving in the rain or snow. I got so fed up with the windshield today driving home that I don't think I will ever purchase another vehicle made by GM EVER! If they only would have tested their product a little maybe we would not have these problems.

The next thing that really irritated me today is that Ingham and Eaton county both have the worlds worst road commission. It didn't even look like they had touched the highway this morning after last nights snowfall and it was almost 11:00 AM. I don't care that it was a Sunday, people are employed to do a job and that job must be completed when the time has come. You could say I am a little bitter or don't respect these workers and their families, but truthfully and honestly I do. If you want to complain about this, the next time you go into the emergency room, just imagine if the doctors decided to too show up. They are hired to protect the public health and government workers are hired to protect the public good and help provided a safe community, but these two counties obviously failed at this test.

Anyhow enough ranting for now...

The Interview - Part One

emaino — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:32:00 GMT

On Friday, February 4th, shortly after I got out of an interview from another company I received and email from a Microsoft Recruiter. The email stated the he was interested in talking to me within the next week. I figured I would take this opportunity to chat with the recruiter to see what could come of it.

The recruiter emailed me back stating that he would like to chat on Friday, February 11th. Even though I was going on be on the road at that time, I figured it could not hurt to chat with the recruiter for a few moments, who knows that may come of the chat. During the call I was asked how I would test a keyboard. This was a very interesting question, but still a lot of fun trying to answer.

The possibilities of other potential offers came up during the call and I told the recruiter that I had another offer, but did not know the details of it yet since I had not been home since it was sent out. The recruiter mentioned that I should get back with him as soon as I found out the details of this offer. On, the morning of Monday, February 14th I contacted the recruiter and told him I honestly have one day left on the other offer, but was going to get it extended so that I could take care of some other personal issues.

Later that day the recruiter responded asking me not to accept the other offer yet and to give Microsoft a fair chance for an interview. He mentioned that I would be flown out to Redmond in the next 5 days for an interview, if that worked with my schedule. At this point, I wasn't sure how to respond, but was excited to go through the interview process.

When I broke the news to my fiancé at the time (yes, on Valentine's Day) she was not to happy about it. She would rather not have to move if we didn't have to. I told her the chances of me getting an offer were very slim, but I wanted to go through the interview process either way because it would be a great experience. She agreed that was fine so I told the recruiter that everything was a go.

On, Tuesday, February 15th I received all of the details about the trip to Redmond and found out that I would be leaving around 9:00 AM the next morning for Seattle. At this point in time I was definitely pretty excited. I was not told what team I would be interviewing with, as the team's positions change very rapidly, and I should ask my recruiter on the morning of my interview.

The trip out to Redmond was flawless. My flight got in early at SeaTac, there was no line for the rental car, and the hotel was very easy to find. That night I had some dinner, took a trip over to campus to be sure I knew where I was going (got lost in the mean time), then stayed up late (1:00 PST) trying to solve a FreeBSD LDAP authentication problem, which is pretty much all fixed.

I finally went to bed, then woke up at 4:30 AM PST (7:30 AM EST), and could not go back to sleep. So I just laid in bed thinking about what kind of questions I might be asked in a few hours and rehearsing testing and coding techniques in my head. I finally decided to get out of bed around 7:00 AM PST, checked my email, chatted with a few people, then hopped into the shower. When I got out of the shower I was greeted by a great ear piercing noise from the fire alarm. I could not smell smoke in my room or in the hallway so I casually got ready (wearing jeans, an orange long sleeve t-shirt, and my I Love C# shirt), grabbed the laptop, and headed downstairs. The moment I got to the first floor the alarm stopped (as I figured it would).

I then had a great breakfast of English muffins, tea, eggs, sausage, and waffles. Once I was done eating I went back upstairs, grabbed my computer bag, the GPS and a few other things. At this point in time it was about 8:15 and I had an hour and fifteen minutes before I had to be at the interview. I figured I would drive by a family friends house for a few to say hi before the interview because I was not sure how much time I would have after the interview to stop by. Norma was glad to see me, but had a client show up about the same time I did so we could not chat for long. I hung out at her place for a few, watched the news, then headed over to campus.