Amazon toy sale

Amazon is having some big sale on toys, some are up to 70% off!

Amazon 70% off toy sale

Some notables

Megablocks

K'Nex Mario Kart building sets

Olympus ZX-1 camera $200 at Amazon

Very good prosumer compact camera with GREAT lens (f1.8-2.5!). Now $200 at Amazon.com.  Yes, ZX-2 is out but it costs 3 times as much!

Windows 8 start menu alternative

This link has several windows 8 start menu alternatives

http://www.howtogeek.com/127699/6-start-menu-replacements-for-windows-8/

I've tried Classic Shell and Start8, but since Start8 now costs money, I'll stick with Classic Shell.

Another worthwhile book..

Currently reading this on and off.. very good one especially for .NET developer

Diablo 3 will be out tomorrow (5/15!)

Absolutely can't wait!

Interview questions

Went to a few interview recently. Below are the questions I can remember. Compared to four years ago when I was looking for my first job, the questions this time are more conceptual in nature, and companies focus a lot more on behavior and situational questions.

C#

• Difference between value and reference type 
• Difference between ref and out
• Where do you use using
• How to use datareader
• How to fill a dataset using data adapter
• How to read a text file 
• Design patterns: factory, abstract etc
• Delegates. What's it for, when to use it.

JavaScript/jQuery

• How to create objects in JavaScript

Database

• Difference between IDENTITY and SCOPE_IDENTITY
• How to know number of rows in a table
• What's ACID
• Define third normal form (3NF) 
• UNION vs UNION ALL
• A quick test on Join tables
• paging in stored procedure
• efficient way to send a list of id to stored procedure and parse. Passing a delimited list then use CTE for this.

WebServices and WCF

• Where's the end-point information in WSDL file
• How to implement a webservice using WCF. Answer: define an interface and decorate with [OperationContract] attribute, then implement the interface.

Recent books..

Some books I am reading now. Part of the reason is for self-study and work, another part of the reason is those technologies are fairly fundamental or desired in the current job market..

ASP.NET MVC3
Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework
Professional ASP.NET MVC 3 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

Javascript/jQuery
JavaScript: The Good Parts
jQuery: Novice to Ninja (I believe this was a free eBook)

WCF
Windows Communication Foundation 4 Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

My Thinkpad X61 upgrades..

Memory: 2GB -> 4GB
Hard drive: 120GB 5400rpm -> 128GB SSD (Corsair Force Series 3, BSOD like crazy on my toughbook but works fine on thinkpad)
Keyboard: replaced once
Battery: replaced once
Wireless: B/G card -> Intel 4950AGN -> Intel 6300 Ultimate-N
Multimedia: Added Broadcom Crystal HD card

Apart from CPU it's now every bit as good as today's ultrabook, not bad for a 4-year old machine.