Andrew P. Gordon

I stumbled onto this paying Craigslist gig in the DC area to rewrite this person's cover letter and resume so s/he can get a better job. Here's the ad:

I need someone to rewrite my cover letter and possibly fix my resume. I think my resume is okay but depending on how you do the cover letter, I might ask you to look at my resume too. I don't want a Microsoft template or a template off the Internet. Trust me, I have looked at them and I need something more personalized to MY qualifications.

I already have a full time job but am looking for a better position. I would prefer a job in the non-profit sector as a communications/marketing/public relations/volunteer coordinator/meetings manager type of position. My degree is in Communication from GMU. I could give you more details if you are interested.

As far as pricing goes, I will give you $25 to rewrite my cover letter and edit my resume. However, if you do a really good job and I get a better job, I will pay you $75 as an additional bonus. I need someone who is a professional at this to do this.

I definitely understand the feeling of knowing a cover letter and/or resume could be better, but this person (OK, let's be honest: this guy...) has a degree in Communications? My question: If you can't communicate your own story and strengths convincingly, how can you market someone else's?

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012912 - Song of the Day

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:53:00 -0800

The Avett Brothers - Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise

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Grooveshark's New HTML5 Mobile Web App

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:44:00 -0800

Grooveshark now offers a mobile webapp that plays music without the help of Flash, works on just about any smartphone, and doesn't require a Grooveshark Premium account to use.

Grooveshark, one of our favorite music streaming services, has long offered apps for Andorid, jailbroken iPhones (after being pulled from the App Store), and other devices, but they require a premium account to use. If you aren't jailbroken and just want to listen to a couple songs, their new HTML5-powered webapp will work wonders. It's in beta right now, and still pretty feature-bare, so don't expect to be able to log in and listen to your playlists. You can, however, search for artists, listen to streaming radio stations, or see what's popular, which is great for those quick one-off listens if you don't have a particular song on your iPod. And, like other HTML5-powered webapps, it can keep playing music even if you close Safari. To check it out, just head to html5.grooveshark.com on your phone.

-LifeHacker

I wonder if this will work on my iPod Touch...

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That's What She Said algorithm

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:05:36 -0800

I love all the fun finds kottke.org provides everyday. Here's a funny Javascript module posted there the other day that classifies if a sentence can be replied with "that's what she said" or not.

twss.threshold

If you want more obscure jokes to be accepted, you can set the "probability the sentence can be replied with twss" threshold. Be aware that a too low threshold may result in a lot of false-positives, and a too high threshold may result in a lot of false-negatives.

twss.threshold = 0.5; twss.is("You're hardly my first."); // false
twss.threshold = 0.3; twss.is("You're hardly my first."); // true

twss.probability

If you'd just like the probability that a sentence can be replied with "That's what she said" you can use the `twss.probability` function.

twss.probability("Behold, I come quickly."); // 0.956323045469951

Or just use the alias `twss.prob`

twss.prob("The juice keeps coming out of the wrong hole!") // 0.9961630818418142

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Steve Jobs Haters

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:16:52 -0800

I stumbled onto this video from a young Steve Jobs the other day.

Lots of the comments took jabs at this line in particular: "Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use."

Seemingly inspiring but total bs, fact of the matter is many of the things we use are made by people than unlike most of us have a superior intelligence and education thus being able to achieve much more than the average Joe. Still, can't help but like the guy for how well he sold "inspirational" stuff like that to gullible people along with their highly overpriced merchandise.
NemoBogdan

@SJ4EV3R Nothing, I've done nothing. But thats my whole point which you totally missed because you think I attacked your guru. He says the life we have was created by people no smarter than you or I. This of course is a lie. A feel good lie, but a lie. He uses self help psycho babble to sell stuff. I applaud the man. He's linked a brand with the cult of personality. The only person I can think of so closely linked to a brand is Henry Ford
WhitneysParty7

Once that you learn how to sell a 50$ device for 500$+, you'll never be the same again
xGapex

The first two flat out discredit the advice of this wildly successful man. I will agree that being born with superior intelligence, money and/or social status no doubt helps, but to paraphrase Ramit, it's better to archive 80% of an goal than to never take any step forward out of laziness or fear, which is what a lot of people do. I think those same people look at Steve Jobs and see him as a divine, almost supernatural man - especially following his tragically untimely death. They set him apart as doing things they never could. Sure, the scale of his success is extraordinary, but anyone can emulate some of the things that I can only imagine made him successful: perseverance when times were hard, courage to look beyond what was thought of as possible, and always working hard, for example. I guess it's way easier to be a cynic and live in a state of mind that only special people can make a difference or strides on a lofty goal (haters gonna hate).

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Male angler fish mating custom

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:58:00 -0800

Interesting.

Found via The Oatmeal - "How the male angler fish gets completely screwed"

Reminds me of this really interesting book, "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex."

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Song of the day - 1/11/12

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:01:00 -0800

"No One's Gonna Love You" - Band of Horses

No Ones Gonna Love You by Band of Horses on Grooveshark

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My love/hate relationship with MediaFire

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:35:09 -0800

It's not surprising that MediaFire's Facebook page has nearly 3.2 million Fans. The versatile free file hosting/sharing site touts unlimited storage for registered users, and no-sign up required for others just looking to share files too large to email. On the surface, it's a great service, but I have a few major reservations I'm trying to resolve.

First of all, MediaFire has always marketed itself as a file sharing service. It's meant for the file that's too large to email, or the photo you want to share with a friend quickly and easily. Not necessarily as an extra long-term storage solution.

I found this out the hard way. About a year ago, I logged back into MediaFire after an extended absence to find all my files had been deleted. Do a quick Google search and you'll find lots of other people with similar stories.

So when MediaFire posted a Happy New Year blog post about all the great services available, including unlimited storage so users could "free up hard-drive space" by archiving files off their comptuer onto a separate storage location without fear, I was especially confused. I posted the following comment, twice, with about 4 days between attempts under different email addresses. Both times it said it was "awaiting moderation" for awhile, but then just sort of disappeared.

Hi Tom. Congrats, and Happy New Year! I've been a happy MediaFire user for about a year now. But, as I rely on this site more and more, there's one line in the Terms of Service that makes me nervous:
"MediaFire is not a data warehousing service. Its intended use is for active accounts and active file sharing which may inadvertently result in backups of files being shared. Accounts with large amounts of stagnant data `collecting dust` or accounts with very limited user and sharing activity may, in MediaFire' sole discretion and without notice, be removed from the Services."
This blog post in particular touts Mediafire as a place to archive files. That's great, and what I'd love to use this site for, but it feels fairly contradictory to "MediaFire is not a data warehousing service" from your ToS.
So, which is it? If I use MediaFire to "upload all those old files into folders" can I TRULY "delete the data from your local computer without fear?" I'm getting mixed messages.

Now, I know the owners don't really owe me anything since I'm not paying them, but snubs like this from invested, loyal users bug me. I guess right now they don't need to get into anything like this given there's no one else who offers what they offer for free.

And, even I'm still using their service -- at least until I can find someone better.

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Phil Dunphy thermostat song

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:27:34 -0800

So good.

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Fun Finds - 1/6/12

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:02:16 -0800

Some random things I stumbled across yesterday.

Founders at Work

Founders at Work is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.

Free toools for creating custom color palettes
A great Found (from FoundMagazine.com).

I love the tag line: "Somewhere out there, in southeast Michigan, four friends are about to have a great summer."

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New Year, New Platform

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:16:00 -0800

Happy New Year, 'ye faithful reader! I've decided to make some changes with this site, and have some new realizations about domains and hosting to share.

For the last two years, I've been using FatCow to host apgordon.com. I went that route becuase a friend recommended them, they supported WordPress with a 1-click install feature, and had unlimited storage. With no technical or customer service problems, paying about $8/month seemed fine.

I've come to realize I just don't need this service though. I haven't made the most of the the unlimited storage given I embed photos I've uploaded to Flickr, and I'm sort of tired of all the plugins, updates and configuring required to make WordPress work.

So I checked out Tumblr again. But, according to their Help section, it doesn't allow for importing in blog content, and the export/back-up feature is currently Mac Only (Windows version coming soon). And, I feel a little uneasy building on a system that doesn't allow comments unless you buy a premium theme (using Disqus).

Here's some strategic SEO for you. While searching for a workaround to use native comments in Tumblr, I found this post: Hey Tumblr users: Want comments? Need privacy? Graduate to Posterous. Wow, Posterous, how'd you know?

In the end, I'm going to give Posterous a shot. I like the updates they've made in the last year since I last checked them out, and the general look is more in line with what I'm after (compared to Tumblr). I like that I can configure a custom domain for free (vs. $10 set-up fee Wordpress.com charges), and import my old blog content easily. I love the option to quickly post to my blog, to Twitter, to Flickr... etc all from my email. And since my domain is registered with GoDaddy, I was able to cancel FatCow altogether without losing anything I need, saving about $100/year.

Takeaway: I'm looking forward to an easier way to post to this blog, and I've come to believe that for 95% of people and businesses looking to carve out some space for themselves on the web, there's no need to spend more than $20 a year doing so. Posterous will even let you buy a domain through them for $12.99/year and set up all the DNS stuff for you. Good stuff.

For the loyal readers using Google Reader, I've updated the RSS feed slightly. It's now: http://feeds.feedburner.com/apgordon1

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Moments in Time

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:37:39 -0800

When I turned 16, my dad bought me my first digital camera: a Canon PowerShot A40. It featured 2.0 megapixels and could hold almost a dozen large (1600 x 1200) pictures on an 8 MB memory card. I still remember saving up to buy a 16 MB from Ritz Camera in the mall so my friends and I could make home movies with my friends more easily. I took a ton of pictures back then. Looking back, it's crazy to still remember taking certain ones. Or, in the case of these two, capturing something that so completely embodied the feeling of that time in my life.

Without many weekend plans, an old friend of mine and I spent a fair amount of 2002 and 2003 riding up and down our quiet suburban street on Friday and Saturday nights. We'd ride for hours, late into the still of the night, talking some, but mostly just taking in the gentle feeling of carving down a single lane road, the cool air in our faces, and maybe the familiarity and comfort of the life we knew was ultimately fleeting. I never thought that after almost 10 years and transfers between 3 laptops, images like these would not only survive, but still mean so much. After all, it was just a normal night when I snatched these shots of my friend while cruising beside him all those years ago. My wife and I didn't do much Black Friday shopping last week, but we did get a great deal on another Canon PowerShot (my how the specs have changed since that first camera). I've realized I haven't taken a lot of pictures since graduating. With this new camera, I'm trying to do it more regularly, remembering that even a picture you didn't think much of might make you pause in ten years time.

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Headlights

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:48:18 -0700

The passenger side headlight of Steph's car went out today on her way to work. We went over to PepBoys together after work to pick up two new bulbs, and after she fell asleep, I ventured out to the parking deck to do my husband duty of replacing this tiny part. I'm not gonna lie: it took me a solid 45 minutes to get this sorted out. First I took out the high-beam light bulb and the new low-beam bulb, not surprisingly, wouldn't fit. Then I couldn't get my hand in well enough to do anything (that's when I figured out how easy it is to "remove the radiator reserve tank"). Then, thinking I had the hang of it, I thought doing the same thing on the driver's side would be no big shmeal. It was, but eventually I used a screwdriver I'd brought "just in case" to pry the plastic cap off the light bulb. By the time I finally shut the hood with a completely satisfying slam that echoed through the parking deck, by hands were black, and my fingers were sore from trying to pinch off those plastic caps. But I got it. I feel like this is what it's all about though. It reminds me of something Merlin said in one of his 43folders videos. He was talking about writing his book, and he was saying how you can watch all the how to videos and read all the blog posts on 7 tips to do x, but sooner or later you have to plant your butt in a chair and just get to work. Just do it until you get better at it, or figure it out, or wade through the crap to your solution. I feel like we're bombarded with the idea that there are shortcuts everywhere. And while I think given technology today, there are more than we probably take advantage of, there's no substitute for--wow, sorry for this--getting one's hands dirty. For starting on something not knowing the solution, and coming out on the other side. For building that confidence that you'll figure it out, and learning the 10 other things you didn't set out to learn along the way.

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Jane

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:27:10 -0700

After watching Apple's promo for Siri today, I couldn't help but think of Jane from Orson Scott Card's Ender series. Jane was a sort of brilliant artificial intelligence being that Ender was able to communicate with through a kind of ear bud. He formed a close friendship and dependence on Jane. I'm trying to imagine a time when Siri-like technology turns into Jane-like technology. When it's not just a computer program that can pick out the commands from common speech, but instead develops a personality and a memory/understanding of the user. When the input-output process evolves into something more complex--something, ironically, more human.

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Getting in front of myself

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:39:04 -0700

If I could go back to high school and do it all over, how would I do things differently? That's a question I asked myself a lot through my years at UMBC. In 2005, during my sophomore year, a great friend and I looked at this question when we entered an entrepreneurship competition at UMBC. Realizing how uncomplicated and easy high school really was in retrospect, we pitched a program to guarantee high schoolers straight A's, or amazing college application essays, or achieving whatever goal our paying customers had in mind. Looking back, I think our idea was basically an after-school program that employed amazing tutors and a healthy dose of Dale Carnegie. Long story short, we didn't win (or even come close), but the question continues to be valuable. In college, my answer to that question typically involved more learning for learning's sake, putting out the additional x% effort to get far greater than x returns, and generally chilling out. Being more present. Taking risks, realizing that basically everything I ever worried about in high school turned out to be ok or didn't matter in the end. With UMBC a few years behind me now, it's interesting to note that these same things are almost verbatim the things I would change if I could go back and start UMBC over. I'm taking my first graduate course now. It's technically on leadership, which is starting to equate to lots of self-reflection and strategies for self-creation. I guess I'm realizing most people repeat the same patterns, tendencies, and mistakes over and over and over again -- myself included. So, new goal: get out in front of myself so when I look back on this time in 3 years, I hopefully won't think "wow, it was so easy then, why didn't I do more?"

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Here comes Spotify

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:26:13 -0700

I must have signed up for email updates a while back because I just got an email from Spotify to let me that they're close to launching their free, streaming music here in the US. Here's the email:

Hello America. Spotify Here. Many thanks for requesting an invite to enjoy Spotify. So far we’re thrilled by our welcome here in the US…and by the demand for invites. It’s great to know that so many of our US friends are excited to try Spotify. The demand for invites has been so huge that it’s going to take us a few weeks to get them all sent out. Please bear with us – we’ll be as quick as we can. Of course, if you just can’t wait, you can jump the queue by signing up directly for Spotify Premium or Unlimited. Spotify Premium gives you access on your phone, your computer, in your home on Sonos and a whole heap of other devices. We’ll be back in touch soon! The team at Spotify

Yeah, I'm sure it'll be cool. I'm sure tons of people will flock to it. But I'm really happy with Grooveshark, and I think there's something for being first. I first wrote about Grooveshark back in January of 2010. That is a LONG time ago. I think that's why in Spotify's promo video, when they said "This will change how you listen to music," I'm sort of annoyed and thinking, "Um, y'all are a little late." Guess my allegiance for Grooveshark runs deeper than I realized. [Hey Grooveshark, if you're listening... free upgrade for being a loyal fan?] Spotify's website isn't clear on when things will start rolling out, but you can of course sign up to get on the invite list. And if you haven't tried Grooveshark yet, that's where you can find me.

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