Grady Laksmono

What’s in the picture?
- On the left side is Bill Gates, and on the right side is Steve Billman in the early days, 1987

Who’s Bill Gates?
- I’ll be surprised if you ask this question, but oh well, he’s the Microsoft Chairman.

Who’s Steve Ballmer?
- He’s Microsoft’s CEO

404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web message “404, URL Not Found,” meaning that the document you’ve tried to access can’t be located.

Alias: E-mail name for individual or group. E-mail names for Microsoft employees generally combine their given name with the first letter of their last name and are often used in conversation to save time.

Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “Ask Larry, he’s the alpha geek around here.”

Code Warrior: A developer; a writer of code; the building block of traditional Microsoft success.

Doortag Browsing: The act of browsing nametags on doors while in a different building, in the hopes of spotting someone famous (or maybe just somebody you’ve conversed with frequently via e-mail, but never met).

Flat Forehead Phenomenon: Something every developer has from smacking himself on the forehead after wasting a disproportionate amount of time on stupid mistakes. (e.g.: “I just spent two hours debugging because I had a comma instead of a semi-colon, what an FFP!”)

Golden: Describes a state of perfection, especially of software. When software is ready to be shipped, you frequently hear Microsoft people say, “Everything is golden!” From this usage, we started to call the master disks for a product that is ready to go to manufacturing the “Golden Masters.” We call the process of approval for sending disks to manufacturing “going golden.”

Heads-down: A person or team that is totally engrossed in their project, causing them often to be oblivious to the world around them. “The test team is totally heads-down right now.”

Lake Bill: The majestic body of water between Buildings 1, 2, 3, and 4. A noted snow geese, goldfish, and rooster habitat, this is also the site of boss-dunkings, Ballmer swims, and juggling practice.

Liveware: Slang for people. Also called wetware or jellyware, as opposed to hardware, software, and firmware.

Muffin Eaters: People that come to a Microsoft event, but have no reason to be there other than to eat the free food. Particularly relatable to prospects that have no intention of buying a thing.

Nonlinear: Inappropriately intense negative response. “I told him we didn’t have any Starbucks Gazebo Blend and he went totally nonlinear.”

OOF: An acronym that’s turned into a word of its own. Often thought to stand for “Out of Office,” leading many to believe it really should be OOO. Actually stands for “Out of Facility”. Also refers to an automated e-mail response in indicating that the sender will be out of the office for a period of time.

RAS: To connect remotely to the corporate network, ostensibly to work. “I’m heading home, but I’ll RAS in later.”

Single Threaded: Not able to do two things at once. “He’s single threaded; he can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.” The opposite is multi threaded.

Swag: Used to describe any object or article of clothing that has a Microsoft company or product logo on it. Because such items are frequently handed out as rewards, every Microsoft employee has a collection. In this sense, it stands for “Stuff We All Get.”

As a Christian, have you ever been confused with this? I’ve been confused with these two for the longest time in my life, I searched, waited, prayed, and up to the time where I was about to give up and didn’t really care about it anymore. Surprisingly, today, there’s something that hit me to pray, right after I prayed, I opened this book titled “God Promises for You” here’s what I got:

I have obeyed my Father’s commands, and I remain in his love. In the same way, if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy. - John 15: 10-11

I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me and hears my words and obeys. That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not sake it, because the house was built well. - Luke 6: 47-48

We can be sure that we know God if we obey his commands. Anyway who says, “I know God,” but does not obey God’s commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if someone obeys God’s teaching, then in that person God’s love has truly reached its goal. - 1 John 2:3-5

“And God spoke all these words, saying: ‘I am the LORD your God…

ONE: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.‘

TWO: ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.‘

THREE: ‘You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.‘

FOUR: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.‘

FIVE: ‘Honor your father and your mother.‘

SIX: ‘You shall not murder.‘

SEVEN: ‘You shall not commit adultery.‘

EIGHT: ‘You shall not steal.‘

NINE: ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.‘

TEN: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.‘

I hope not!I recently had a great conversation with one of the managers at Microsoft. He was telling me that a certain company had been reaching out to him in regards to applying for some senior positions within their company. As all smart people do, he entertained the offers, seeing what they had to say (side note: I think everyone should always be looking for their next opportunity.  If anything, it’s good interview practice and always nice to see what your market value is).

Anyway, back to the story. So this manager went through the process, and then it came to the time where they asked him to fax over his transcript. He let them know that he did NOT meet the requirement for employment, as it was below a 3.0 (he said it was 2.9999, which I think is what everyone says). The company insisted that he fax a transcript, so he went to his parents house, dug through his old paperwork, and ended up faxing them his report card from 3rd grade instead. I thought that was a great story- the company did appreciate the humor in it as well.

This got me thinking- do the grades you earn in college really matter? I know that there were some classes I slept through in college (I’m talking about Principles of Accounting 210), and there were some I did great in.

Is it fair for this record to follow you all the way through your career? Should there be a cut-off point where it doesn’t matter anymore?

I know Microsoft employees who love to ask about GPA, but to me it doesn’t make an ounce of difference.

What are your thoughts? Do grades even matter?  Should they matter to potential employers as you progress in your career?

- Janelle
Microsoft Jobs Blogger
P.S. In case you were wondering, the manager didn’t take the job.

Thank you to University of Wisconsin – Madison, Computer Science Department for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education for making this lists available:

Statement of Purpose*

Sample Outline

Your Statement of Purpose should be clear, concise, and complete in sentence structure. However, try to be as informative as possible throughout the Statement. Before you submit your Statement of Purpose to the department of your chosen field of interest and/or to the graduate
school, you should ask your advisor of a faculty member to read and comment on your written work. Prior to this, drafts should be shared with your friends and family.

Opening Paragraph. Here, you want to introduce yourself and give your general reasons for pursuing graduate study. Because the selection committee members will read many applications, make your statement relevant by stating your particular talents and individuality.

Qualifications. In this section, the aim is to build a foundation for your forthcoming work. You should discuss your experiences in the following:

1. Explain why you chose this field. What motivated you.
2. Your expertise and accomplishments in your major field, including any research you’ve performed. You should mention the project and the name of the professor who you worked for or under the direction of.
3. Your undergraduate studies in general and how they relate to what you intend to do in graduate school.
4. Your specific experiences that demonstrate your motivation and inspiration for continued study.
5. Other relevant experiences (i.e., jobs, community activities, leadership in school organizations, awards, honors, etc.). Be sure to include names of person/s, names of organizations, and other important details.
6. Explain (briefly) any discrepancies on your transcript which would include having a lower GPA in a particular semester or year. No details are necessary.
7. Mention specific faculty you are interested in working with.

Background. Here, you want to tell the school about yourself. Also, describe your family and your community (or a community in which you once lived). You could include whether your family, a family member in particular, or someone in your community influenced your chosen field of interest. Also, you want to give examples of personal attributes or qualities that you know will help you successfully complete graduate study. For instance, describe your determination to achieve your goals, your initiative and ability to develop ideas, and your capacity to work through problems independently.

Closing Paragraph. Finally, leave the reader with a strong sense that you are qualified and will be successful in graduate or professional school.

The statement should only be 1 to 2 pages long so you need to be concise.

*Thanks to the University of California System for their contribution in writing this sample Statement of Purpose.

Good Samaritan laws (Acts) in the United States and Canada are laws/acts protecting from blame those who choose to aid others who are injured or ill. They are intended to reduce bystanders’ hesitation to assist, for fear of being prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. The name Good Samaritan refers to a parable told by Jesus in the New Testament (Luke 10:33-35).

In other countries (as well as the Canadian province of Quebec), Good Samaritan laws describe a legal requirement for citizens to assist people in distress, unless doing so would put themselves in harm’s way. Citizens are often required to, at minimum, call the local emergency number, unless doing so would be harmful, in which case, the authorities should be contacted when the harmful situation has been removed. Such laws currently exist in countries such as Israel, Italy, Japan, France, Belgium, Andorra, and Spain. The photographers at the scene of Princess Diana’s fatal car accident were investigated for violation of the French Good Samaritan law. In Germany, “Unterlassene Hilfeleistung” (neglect of duty to provide assistance) is an offense; a citizen is obliged to provide first aid when necessary and is immune from prosecution if assistance given in good faith turns out to be harmful. In Germany, knowledge of first aid is a prerequisite for the granting of a driving license.

Isn’t it interesting?

Here’s the list of the BEST universities in England listed based on their Computer Science program:

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/gug/gooduniversityguide.php?subject=COMPUTER

Have you ever had this curiosity? What’s the best university in the world? Does anybody keep track of their rankings? I personally usually just care about the BEST universities in the North America, but I had this curiosity some seconds ago and did a little bit of research and found something that’s really interesting!!! And here’s the place where I’ll share about what I found!!! Check out the PDF format of the TOP 500 WORLD UNIVERSITIES

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005FullList2.pdf

If you’re curious about universities in the other part of the world, check out this web page:

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005TOP500list.htm