I saw this picture on my machine today while trying to backup my machine. I can't help myself but post it pretty interesting if you ask me ;)

The Call Center industry is a booming market in the Philippines. Answer is, if you live in Manila you probably know atleast 1 or 2 people working on this industry(i think majority of my classmates in college ended working as a Call Center Agent). They even have a song being played on the Philippine radio airwaves.

It's a great job and people who work at this companies often earn more money than entry-level programmers. Yep! that's true. 5 years back when I was looking for a job fresh out of college a friend told me that he was getting paid 17K + bonus as a call center agent. My jaw dropped because a buddy of mine who is a brilliant developer just got his first job as developer for a multi-national company was just getting paid 8.5K even my first paycheck as a full-time developer was only at 12K.

It's a pretty big margin huh? I guess that's the reason why alot of fresh grads go directly to call centers as their first choice of work(or maybe because of the lack of job openings in the Philippines). I do know that alot of people just call centers as a stepping stone for their real career goal. A former colleague of mine was a call center agent for Sykes before joining my former company. He said that he needed a job while reviewing for his SWCD and some cash to payoff the certification exam fee.

I was working on small project today and one of the requirements is to list down all the Mondays in a year and populate a dropdownlist with the values.

It's a funny requirement but still needs to be done since the client wants it that way(Oh well, customer is always right even if it would end up wrong). Below is my 5 minute function that accepts a 4 digit year value and DayOfWeek as its parameter(I added this feature to the function just incase they go kookoo again). The function would then return a generic list of DateTime objects that equals the specified DyOfWeek(eg. DayOfWeek.Monday, DayOfWeek.Tuesday and etc.).

private List<DateTime> GetDatesByDayOfWeek(int selectedYear, DayOfWeek dayOfWeek)
{
   string firstDayOfTheYear = String.Format("January 1, {0}", selectedYear);
   string lastDayOfTheYear = String.Format("December 31, {0}", selectedYear);

   DateTime firstDateTime = DateTime.Parse(firstDayOfTheYear);
   DateTime lastDateTime = DateTime.Parse(lastDayOfTheYear);

   Int32 dayCount = lastDateTime.DayOfYear - 1;

   List<DateTime> selectedDates = new List<DateTime>();

   for (Int32 ctr = 0; ctr <= dayCount; ctr++) {
      DateTime processedDate = firstDateTime.AddDays(ctr);
      if (processedDate.DayOfWeek == dayOfWeek) {
         selectedDates.Add(processedDate);
      }
   }

   return selectedDates;
}

Pretty boring huh?

*update* Justice, the most Metrosexual developer in the face of North America posted a quick tweak to my code(Robert locke and Jokiz have the same comment too). Check his code below:

public static IList<DateTime> GetAllDaysOfWeekForYear(int year, DayOfWeek dw)
{
   List<DateTime > listOfDates = new List<DateTime>();

   DateTime firstDayOfWeekInYear = FindFirstDayOfWeekInYear(year, dw); 

   for (DateTime currentDateTime = firstDayOfWeekInYear; currentDateTime.Year == year;
currentDateTime = currentDateTime.AddDays(7))
   {
      listOfDates.Add(currentDateTime);
   }
   return listOfDates;
}

public static DateTime FindFirstDayOfWeekInYear(int year, DayOfWeek dw)
{ 
   for (int i = 1; i <= 7; ++i)
   {
      DateTime currentDate = new DateTime(year, 1, i);
      if (currentDate.DayOfWeek == dw)
      {
         return currentDate;
      }
   }
   throw new Exception("Impossible!");
}

It's true. Everybody has their own match. Their own weakness. Their own kryptonite that would hold them to their knees and trade their philosophies and senses for a chance to break free.

And for my friend who is a recognized Linux and Java guru(he founded the largest Java User Group in the Philippines) its the skimpy pants and hanging shirts.

The photo was taken on a Linux conference in Manila back in 2005. Just look at how hard Melvin held on to Microsoft. Mercy!

*Disclaimer* According to Melvin, He still preffers Linux over Windows and that all he did that day was touch Microsoft but never had the chance to use it. :P

comments? go here! >> http://devpinoy.org/blogs/keithrull/archive/2007/08/21/even-linux-gurus-have-their-match.aspx

I've been interviewing lately for developers to fill the 2 open positions in my company and I've just realized an interesting stat inside our development team. A year and a half ago there where:

• 4 Caucasians, 2 from India, 2 Chinese, 2 Filipino
• 2 of the 10 Developers are girls. 1 Chinese and 1 from India.

After 1 year 1/2 with people resigning and us hiring a new batch of developers, composition changed into:

• 1 Caucasian, 1 Filipino, 2 Chinese and 5 from India.
• 4 of the 9 Developers are girls. 1 Chinese and 3 from India.

Pretty interesting huh? It's really amazing how the composition of our team changed in a year and a half. I guess its because of the turnover that we have encountered in the past few months..

So how about you? Whats the composition of your IT team?

*Wanna Comment?* Go here!

Some of you might have noticed that I haven't posted anything lately... well the reason is that I've been busy the past few weeks since working on alot of Reporting Services lately for one of the biggest projects that currently in progress in the company that I work for and when I say big I really mean big.

The thing about this current project is that it doesn't involve alot of coding and is mostly data analysis and report writing with Microsoft Reporting Services(just think of it this way, I need to generate and build 30 reports in 30 days. Yikes.). This takes alot of my time in a day and it has been the same way eversince I came back from my wedding. 

But anyhow, I'm back and I'm ready to post my dev thoughts again. I can't wait to start posting about Silverlight and start showing you guys some cool things that I have built with .NET 3.0 lately (No Windows Vista samples thou.. Any sponsors for this? :P).

Just keep readin' guys. I'll have something in the next few days ;) Till then, God speed everyone!

Hmmm... I was browsing CS today when I saw an announcement about the upcoming CSDC (Community Server Developer Conference) and man was I excited! I think its about time that Telligent gets the guys together and show them the stuff that they have been baking since the announcement for CS2008. I've been running CS in the developers community that I lead for two years now and I think going to such events would help us know great things that we can do and implement at our CS install.

Gee! I'm excited.. but.. I can't go unless somebody sponsors my plane ticket and registration :P

Anybody interested? :P Scott? Alex? Rob? Anyone?

Hey guys! Please vote the DevPinoy theme as the best looking theme for Community Server. You can vote for us here. Thanks guys!

Yup! We are finally married ;) We tied the knot on July 4, 2007 on a ceremony at Blue Gardens, Quezon City, Philippines.

It was a blast, a moment we'll forever cherish!

Thanks to everyone who came to our wedding! God bless you all!

I was browsing devpinoy today when I saw a post by one of the members about his "maintenance project" boredom. While I was reading his post I kinda had this "blast from the past" moment wherein memories of how i was back when i was starting my career as developer started vividly jumping into my head. I coudn't stop laughing for a couple of minutes because I just can't believe that some of the things that I did back when I was a little bit younger.

I used to get bored easily specially if the project that I am working on is boring, not challenging, repetitive or just something that doesn't even burn a braincell to accomplish. I would get so bored that i dread the idea of even going to work.

Yup. That was me back then.

I'ts funny how far I've reached eversince that days... I was so focused on new things, new technologies, new ideas that I forgot the reason why I was hired in the first place and that is to do work and do a good job on it. I think I was so engulfed in the idea that knowledge on every aspect of technology(even if its the most useless piece of code) would give me an edge over everybody. 

It was a bad choice, a bad decision but i have learned to grow from it and now here I am, smarter than the developer I used to be. I guess I grew older and started to realize that knowledge is only important if you are using it in a positive and productive way. Any experience you learn from your daily life is a preparation for you in the future.

Through the years of working I was able to formulate a strategy on how to combat boredom... it has worked for me but believe me, it takes time to master. I can't say that I have mastered it completely but i do know that it has helped me little by little to establish myself as a better, smarter and a more patient individual. Below is the list of things i do to make work a little bit more fun than usual:

1. Try to learn as much as you could about the project. It doesnt matter if its a big task or not. Whats important to me is the idea that I might learn something new about project even if its the most boring project in the world. As I always say "You never know when you will find the next gem between the rocks."
2. See maintenance projects as a way for me to imporve the code. Whenever I'm assigned to maintenance project I see to it that I leave that project in a better shape than when I first got it. I usually pad my timeline with extra hours so that I could refactor the code. I always say to myself that any code that I touch is my property even if i didn't started it. You don't want to hear somebody saying something awful about your work(even if the code is not 99% yours) and perople usually blame the first developer or the last developer who touched a project. Always leave a mark of excellence on every work you do.
3. Take it as a challenge even if you hate the project. Don't dread the project because you wont be able to make good results. One of the things I learned in my career is that managers can easily spot if you don't like what you are doing and this can sometimes lead to bad impressions about your personality. What i usually do it code my heart out until my frustration(and burdens) are gone.
4. I'm paid to code and I should do it. Let's face it, even if you don't like a task but i's your job you need to do. It's the people who clean the drainage system.. they may not like cleaning, scrubbing and removing thrash in sewer but they need to do it because it's their job. We are not paid to like our job. We are paid to do the job and do a great job. Managers expect that from us thats why they assigned us to that task because the believe that we can accomplish it and think that we have the right skills to turn bad code into magic.
5. ...and finally. Smile. No matter how hard the task, No matter how boring, No matter how repetitive. Always smile. I remember someone told me before that when you smile and feel good about yourself you always end up doing great things and you make people around you feel good. Stressing yourself about a small problem takes alot of brainpower and I would rather focus my energy on building solutions than drowning myself in the sea of problem.

I hope this helps you, I know it did wonders for me and it could do the same to you too! Practice this 5 things and reap the rewards of a happier work life.

***Want to comment?*** Comments are welcome but I suggest you post them in my DevPinoy blog. ;) Click here go there now.