Guess not

Looks like the iChat position at Apple is a no-go. Oh well. We'll see if Google goes better.

There and back again

The trip down to Apple went pretty well. The flight down was reasonably uneventful, the interviews went splendidly, and then on Saturday everything went to hell (sort of).

It started when I was packing up in the morning: I managed to chip my thumbnail. This was the first in a series of annoying events.

Next up, I managed to get a speeding ticket going to the airport. Got clocked at 88mph while the official speed is 65. Of course, none of the traffic goes anywhere near 65, so the actual speed differential between myself and the rest of the vehicles was fairly negligible. All the same, speeding is speeding. I just hope the fine isn't too huge.

Following this, I arrived at the airport to find that my flight to Toronto was delayed, but that they'd make up the time in the air. This wasn't too terrible. I also had to go through that idiotic porn scanner at the TSA checkpoint.

What was terrible was that my flight from Toronto to Winnipeg, which was already scheduled to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, was delayed by 4 hours due to a little flaky white stuff sprinkling ever so delicately from the sky.

Luckily Pearson has free wifi, so it wasn't a total loss, but rolling in at nearly 5am after a long day in the air wasn't exactly how I was expecting to end my californian visit.

But, all's well that ends well. At least I picked up (with employee discount) a shiny new iPod dock for my Touch while I was down there.

I haven't heard back from Apple yet, but I'll be sure to blog about it when I do.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

I keep promising myself I'll never fly again, but here I am, jetting off to California for 2 days. It's for a good cause, though: an on-site interview at Apple.

Google also dropped me an email and indicated they're interested in an on-site, but I won't have any time in my schedule until April, and if Apple comes back with a decent offer before then I'll probably just go with that. It's kind of a shame they didn't contact me a few weeks earlier or I could have doubled up. Such is life, I guess.

Onward and upward...

Day 3: Twin Falls to No Internet

The drive from Twin Falls to Sunnyvale was long and boring, but not nearly as long and boring as the time spent waiting for ATT to install my internet properly.

For the record, it took them a half dozen techs and all the way through to Saturday evening to get me online.

Life at Apple is pleasant.

Also, it turns out I'm getting reimbursed 50c per mile for the drive out and back. Considering the number of miles I covered...

Day 2: Glendive to Twin Falls

Like yesterday, you already know what the map looks like.

Had a nice IHOP lunch, got in early enough to avoid the Sunday rush. Almost hit a gopher on I90, twit just stood up right in the middle of the road. Wasn't a big deal.

Got a little sprinkle of rain coming into Twin Falls, but not enough to wash off the bugs, just enough to get the sides of the car dirty.

Day 1: Winnipeg to Glendive

Not bothering with the map this time, you know what it looks like. Head south from Winnipeg, hang a right at Fargo.

There was a bit of a lineup at the border but I made it through in reasonable time. The south wind was a bit of an annoyance all day, but nothing to write home about. Had Arbys for lunch in Grand Forks.

I also noticed that the rear suspension in the jellybean is fully bottomed out with all my crap in the back. This might perhaps help explain why I keep bending rims.

Oh well.

To California I Go

Hello again, Apple. It's been a while.

Slow month

It's been a pretty slow month, not much news to tell.

I found out that I got an A+ in my Atmospheric Science last term, and was offered a TA position for the class. I declined, though, as I'm rather busy just keeping up with my regular schoolwork.

With all the new features announced at MacWorld, I'm really starting to itch for an iPod Touch, especially with the addition of mail and google maps. I'll have to rope in one of my Apple friends when I'm down in California this summer so I can get the employee discount at the corporate store. At the same time, though, I'm also somewhat tempted by the Eee and the MacBook Air. While both are considerably larger than the iPod Touch (and in the case of the Air, much more expensive), they do come with the benefit of a real keyboard and a normal-ish sized screen.

I suppose I'll just have to see. Any option would beat having to use the filthy lab computers at school.

Speaking of California, I've started the visa process with Palm and it at least hasn't burst into flames yet. I suppose that's a good sign.

It's going down to -36c tonight, while Mom and Bob are away in Portugal soaking up the sun. Life is so unfair!

Palm it is!

So it looks like Apple won't be giving me an offer for the iCal position, so rather than wait around for some other department to show some interest I've decided to just go with Palm for this summer.

I'm really looking forward to making it to California (providing the Visa doesn't fall through), and I'm certainly looking forward to the dump trucks full of money they're promising me!

It's good to be me

So today I had an interview with Apple for a summer position in the iCal group, located in building IL3 of the mothership down in Cupertino. The interview went pretty well, and they should be getting back to me soon, hopefully with an offer. (For those of you in the loop who are somewhat confused at the timing, the interview was supposed to be tomorrow but got bumped up to today due to a scheduling conflict)

I also just got off the phone with Palm who will be giving me an offer shortly, which should net me somewhere on the order of $5k/mo plus some housing and relocation expenses that I didn't really pay attention to because I was trying to figure out how much that would be per hour (it's roughly $30/hr).

All in all, things are looking good. Now I just need to get that damn J-1 Visa.

Trading stripes for spots

So I upgraded my Mini to Leopard. I must say I'm very impressed, even though I was already using it for 2 months this summer. It does feel a bit odd now that there's some of my code in it, but I guess I'll just have to get used to the feeling.

The only thing that makes me sad is that I can't load it on my G3. Even if it had enough CPU for it, the 6 gig root drive is just too small to hold it all. It'll have to make do with Tiger, for now and forever. So sad.

I shall call him... Mini Me

So I went and did it. I can't live another year using my slow-ass G3, so I just ordered up a shiny new Mini (2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram) to take its place as well as a new trackball because apparently Macs these days don't come with ADB ports.

Interestingly, this is only the second computer I've ever bought myself new; the first being when I put together my Wintendo back in 2001. I've certainly owned quite a few computers over the years, but when they were bought new they were either family computers or a gift, and when I bought them they were generally used.

So, if all goes well my new baby should come sometime around the first week in September, with free shipping no less!

I should also note that this continues my uninterrupted streak of owning SMP machines going all the way back to my 9600/200mp.

I'm very thankful for my employee discount today.

Totally Non-Causal

So it must be RANDOM! And that would just about describe my day today.

It started off simply enough with my thanks-for-being-an-intern goodie bag from Apple arriving. Well, I shouldn't really say that; it started with Andy's intern goodie bag arriving, then an hour or two later mine arrived. Go figure.

My List'o'loot includes: an Apple pen, an Apple water bottle, an Apple note pad, an Apple t-shirt (size small, durr), a copy of Final Cut Studio 2 (all 9 DVDs worth), a copy of iWork (I damn well better get a copy), and last but not least...

A lovely silver iPod Shuffle (1GB)! Awesome!

A little later in the day the randomness continued with a surprise (to me, at least) conference with none other than Tim Bray, who came by to give a talk about how wonderful and marvelous Atom is. (more specifically, the Atom Publishing Protocol)

He gave a lovely talk, and I was able to ask him some very interesting questions. All in all he seemed like quite a nice person.

So all in all, it was a very random day indeed.

Numerology

I just thought I would link to an article about Numbers, which is part of iWork '08. It really impressed me as a somewhat frustrated spreadsheet user. The minute I started using it, the first thought that popped into my mind was "why haven't spreadsheets always worked this way?".

Macworld's review of Numbers.

Party Time!

The work I've been doing here at Apple this summer has been in relation to iWork '08. Some other folks in the office have been hard at work on iLife '08. Both are pretty awesome, check 'em out!

While you're at it, take a peek at the new iMacs. I sure wish I had one!

(If you hit the links and still see the old products, just hit refresh a few times for the shiny new ones to pop up)

Oh the sweet airyness

So today at work the fellow who works across from me, Boris, finally got sick of his Aeron chair being a bit too floppy in the reclining function. So, he scrounged around the office and found a broken Humanscale chair and, with a bit of blunt persuasion, managed to coax it back into working order.

Not being one to let a perfectly good chair go to waste, I was quick to trade out my faux-leather board room style chair for the Aeron. After a little tweaing, I managed to get it nice and comfy, and just locked the reclining function as I usually do with my chairs.

So now I have a fancy Aeron chair to keep my butt from getting sweaty as I slave away in the data mines, digging for code.

I feel so dot-com.

Work, Work, Work

Work is going well. I'm settling into a bit of a groove and making some fairly meaningful contributions to my project.

I'm still considering if I should bring home a Mac Mini with my discount. It's really tempting, but I've got a lot of other stuff I need to pay for first.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Life is good here in Cupertino. The weather is great, though maybe a bit warmer than it needs to be.

I got to meet a bunch of my friends at Apple, as well as the recruiters who have been helping me and a bunch more folk here and there. I didn't get to meet everyone I wanted to, but given all the other events going on today that's not really surprising.

I also got to experience Steve Jobs's Reality Distortion Field up-close and personal. I have to say that he really comes across as a very genuine guy who wants to, and has the resources to, bring great things to life.

All in all I'm really looking forward to coming down here for a full work term next summer. I hope.

Free sushi!

First day went well. Commute is about an hour, give or take. Half an hour of walking, half an hour of train.

I got free sushi for lunch, so that's always good. Co-workers are very friendly and whatnot. Further details about work are of course super-duper-top-secret, like pretty much everything else at Apple. I'm sure someone has been fired for leaking what kind of pizza Steve Jobs orders for the board meetings.

Vancouver here I come!

I got my new job offer today from Apple in Vancouver. Yay!

I can't hit the road just yet, though, as I still need to find a place to stay.