VisualDNA have quite cool application forms on their website. They're worth checking out.

Sample questions:

1. Your manager asks you to delivery a project and you estimate 4 weeks to deliver it. He tells you he needs it in 5 days. What do you do?

2. Task: write a function called GCD that prints the greatest common divisor of two positive integers (a and b ). Hint: you can use the fact that GCD(a,b ) = GCD(b, a mod b ) and GCD(a,0 ) = a. Please provide code in any language you want (Java, Scala, PHP or bash preferred).

Despite 20 years of programming, I think I'd struggle with 2! Especially during an interview.

When I started out, years ago, there used to be a lot of talk about hobbies and outside interest in interviews, but that's frowned upon these days. You have to keep it more sterile/professional.

You don't appear to need sleep or any kind of rest, which must help.

That's a good point, Scott.

I refuse to talk about SEO with my board of directors now. I will only talk to them about good content. They're responsible for providing the content and that's where I want them to focus. I had a previous CEO badger me because we weren't near the top of Google rankings for the search term "Classroom heating". I said I didn't even know we provided heating for classrooms. He said we don't, but it's something he wants to get into. <bangs head on table>. "Give me good content and let Google sort itself out"

Google provides helpful guides on how to construct proper websites. I'm surprised by how few sites follow it.

I think I need to do more to self-promote in order to get business opportunities and generally develop my career. Working as a one man band for a smallish manufacturing company, I don't get to meet many fellow IT pros, and I've been here ten years so have tended to lose touch with contacts at previous employers. I started writing a blog a few years ago (carnivalboy.wordpress.com), but that's become more of a way of documenting notes for my own personal use. It only gets about a dozen visitors a day. I feel I should do more.

I'm on LinkedIn, but don't get involved in any of the groups. I joined a virtualisation group, but ignore it. I post on Spiceworks and here. Both are great, though a little US-centric (I'm British). I go to a few seminars put on by IT suppliers and manufacturers. There's never much networking going on at these seminars. I tend to find they are mostly attended by people from larger organisations who turn up in groups and only talk to each other or spend the day staring at their phones. There's very few SMB one-man band types (partly, I guess, because it's so hard to leave the office when you work on your own). I'm an introvert, so none of this stuff is easy for me. I have to force it.

Head hunters are hardly knocking down my door with fantastically exciting new opportunities! What should I do?

Please post any tips on this thread.

Yeah, I'm picturing you as a kind of Bob Dylan character, but instead of one of those devices that allows you to play the harmonica hands-free, you've got one for the trombone.

@scottalanmiller said:

triple focus on classical / Spanish guitar, orchestral trombone and voice.

At the same time? That could sound pretty wild.

Google forms are ace. We're about to start using them. It's just a very easy way to create a form which then populates a Google spreadsheet. Previously, I've created HTML forms and validated them on the server with classic ASP, and used them to populate an SQL Server database - which isn't trivial (compared with using Google at least). There are various add-ons you can use with Google forms, I believe, but haven't delved into that so far. I don't know why Microsoft don't offer something similar with Office365.

The biggest stumbling block with Google forms is that, as far as I'm aware, you can't remove Google's branding. I wouldn't want Google's logo to be the first thing our visitors see. So it's not an option for this particular project.

The iPad app I'm looking at has the SMS sent from the app providers servers. You don't configure anything yourself. You just upload a CSV of mobile numbers via their website and they take care of the rest.

Can you configure a Google form to send an SMS or e-mail based on what is entered on the form (e.g. if they select Bob Smith from a dropdown list of employees then it will e-mail Bob Smith to tell him his visitor has arrived).

Not easy for me! Writing my own web form may be a better approach, but I'm a little busy at the moment and trying to do less web programming at work not more. The boss wants to go live by the end of April. The iPad app could be set up in around an hour, I reckon. I'm not that quick at web development. The iPad would be mounted in some kind of stand, so would be stationary and remained plugged in. But a PC with a touch screen monitor offers infinite possibilities, so is attractive.

The front door will be left open, so no intercom required. My theory is that people will walk in, see the iPad, and use that to sign themselves in. The app I linked to then sends an SMS to the person they're meeting, telling them their visitor is waiting for them in reception. My biggest concern is how to ensure visitors realise that they need to sign-in with the iPad - not all our visitors are that bright.

We'll also need a way of monitoring the reception area. I'm thinking a cheap Logitech webcam will do the trick, without the need for expensive security systems to be installed.

We're planning on getting rid of our receptionist at work (not literally, they will be taking on a new role elsewhere in the organisation). So we will have an unmanned reception area. Has anyone got any experience of visitor management software, good or bad? Any other things to think about?

I'm thinking of using something like this:
http://theipadreceptionist.com/

@david.wiese said:

it is bad when you shut out technology.
I have a long list of things I want to learn and books I want to read, from French to the guitar to Leo Tolstoy to jQuery, and hopefully have around 40 years left to achieve them. Even then, I know I will run out of time before I'm even half way through. Life is short!

@PSX_Defector said:

You can't be afraid of it.

I think it's good to be a little afraid of your servers. It's fear that makes you double check you're doing the right thing before hitting enter. The day I stop fearing the servers will be probably be the day I really screw something up. I've had guys that I wished were a little less confident in what they were doing. I don't mind admitting that my hands sometimes shake when I'm doing a particularly critical job. 20 years and I've yet to screw up anything major yet.

@david.wiese said:

true however, if you want to be in IT you unfortunately need to know how to use these devices. Execs do not accept i don't know very well.

It's not possible to know everything! I've banned the use of Android devices in our company, and that's worked out ok so far. I do have an Android phone in my drawer which I use occasionally though - mainly for testing wifi signals, as Apple bans such apps.

Not knowing suits me fine:
Wife: Honey, I've got a problem with my tablet.
Me: It's Android, ask your son to sort it out.
Son: Dad, I've got a problem with my tablet.
Me: It's Android, ask your mother to sort it out.

Ignorance can sometimes be bliss - especially at home.

The only personal computer equipment I own is an iPod. My wife has a Nexus tablet, and my son has a Nook tablet - neither of which I know how to operate, even though they are linked to my Google account and I end up paying for their apps.

steve has 25 posts and 33 reputation. That's over 100%! Who is this guy, he must be a genius?

Looking at the stats, I have the lowest ratio of reputation to post count. Am I doing that badly?

@scottalanmiller said:

Chromebooks conceptually should have no need or use for Pertino or any VPN.

Well, I think they have the concept wrong