Code Frenzy

About a week ago, Chris and I “launched” TravelStash.  By “launched” I mean we have now opened it up for general consumption.  Anyone can join TravelStash and use it just like Rheanna and Sanjay did on their recent South Africa trip, Margaret and Alan have on their trip around the South Island of New Zealand and of course, how Chris and I have consistently used it to keep our friends and family updated on all our travels over the past couple of years.

TravelStash started off a few years ago as a simple travel blog with a map on it.  At that time there were no blogging engines available that allowed one to map their travels, something I was very interested in since I was working for a mapping company at the time.  So, I decided to build one from scratch.  I won’t deny it, it’s been hard work, but since then, we’ve built a lot of cool features (read: we’ve spent and continue to spend a lot of time on it!) and TravelStash has grown into a fully functional travel blog (still with a map!).  What makes TravelStash a little different to other travel blogging sites out there is that it allows members to sign up as part of a ‘group’ and create separate ‘trips’ for each of their holidays that they can then ‘blog’ under.  Members can upload as many photos as they like to each of their blog posts using a really advanced photo upload mechanism designed to facilitate photo management as much as possible.  Aside from their travel stories, members can use TravelStash as a bookmarking tool to save links or travel ideas, something that we have chosen to call a ‘wishlist’.  You can even save your wishlist to a PDF file so you can quickly and easily print your bookmarked ideas to paper and take them with you on your next adventure.  Then there are ‘travel tips’ – quick little snippets of travel advice that members can write up…

Basically, there’s a lot of neat stuff already built into TravelStash and we are constantly thinking of new enhancements for it.  The latest addition has been the ability to notify your facebook account (if you have one) when you publish an article or a wishlist item in TravelStash.  That way, if for some strange reason your friends and family haven’t subscribed to your TravelStash RSS feed and aren’t obsessively hitting your TravelStash group or trip pages to see what you’re up to, you can still let them know by posting a small note to your facebook wall and your friend’s news feeds when you publish a new travel post or wishlist item.  We’ll soon be extending this to travel tips too, just to be consistent.

Another feature we’ll be releasing soon is the ability to save an entire trip (photos, map, blog posts and comments) to MS Word or PDF format.  This will enable you to save your holiday stories and memories in a format which you can then print out and make a book out of.  If you save it to MS Word you then have the ability to edit and alter the way it all looks and could even take it down to a print shop to have professionally printed and bound into a beautiful coffee table book.

In any case, at this stage TravelStash is 100% free to use and has no ads.  We think it’s pretty cool (ok, that’s a bit of an understatement… we think it’s freakin’ AWESOME!) and encourage everyone to create an account and use it on their next holiday.

Last time I posted about “Me”, I mentioned that Chris and I were moving across to London. I was due to start my new job at Next Jump in a few weeks time, and Chris was looking for work by sending out dozens of emails every day. Well, that was over a month ago now and during that time, we started realizing that things really weren’t looking good for Chris to find someone to sponsor him for a work permit in the UK (you can read all about his feelings re this here). We waited about as long as we could before making an inevitable decision – forget the UK for now – let’s go to Brisbane (Australia) instead. Because Chris and I are both NZ citizens, we are entitled to live and work in Australia. This means we should, in theory, have no big problem finding work there. The stress and tension created by not knowing whether Chris was even going to be able to stay in the UK for more than 6 months (tourist visa) was awful and so we had to make a call. It wasn’t an easy decision to make because I was really looking forward to my new job at Next Jump and we’d already shipped 4 boxes of personal effects across to London as well, not to mention the $2000 price tag attached to my UK HSMP visa (which is now all sorted out and stamped in my passport, doh!). But it felt like the right decision to make.

Since then, a few things have happened. Chris flew back to NZ (yay!), we spent a week in Wellington applying for roles in Brisbane on SEEK, we both did a few phone interviews for potential jobs, and right now we’re in Brisbane for about a week, doing a few face-to-face interviews with companies that are interested in us. We’re staying with Rheanna and Sanjay, friends from Wellington, which has been so great. (Thanks guys!!)

I’ll tell you what – I have done so many interviews over the past couple of years it’s really quite ridiculous. Including the 10 or so interviews I did with Google, I guess I’ve done about.. 20 or so interviews… mostly technical. I’m kinda tired of doing them, but hopefully I won’t have to for much longer. The stupid thing is that most of those 20 or so interviews have actually ended in job offers, but for one reason or another I haven’t accepted them. Dumb eh? Anyway, right now I’m focusing on the mining industry because it seems like a really really interesting industry to be involved in and there is lots of work for software developers in mining here in Australia. Sweet. I had 1 interview + 1 meeting with a recruiter on Thursday and 2 interviews + 3 meetings with recruiters on Friday. Wowee. Another couple of interviews scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. Busy busy busy!!

The plan is to secure a job for at least one of us while we’re here, fly back to Wellington mid-next week then come back about a week after that, after shipping all our stuff over and saying goodbye to everyone all over again. Hopefully then we’ll find us a nice place to live and settle down a bit! We haven’t had our own place for more than 6 months now and it’s getting a bit tiring living out of backpacks, suitcases and other people’s kindness.

So yeah, it’s been a bit of a stressful and confusing time but I think we’ve made the right decision. The last few days in Brisbane have been really cool – it’s a really nice city, the weather is wonderful (I LOVE the sunshine!), there are beaches near by and it looks like we’ll be able to afford to live in a neat apartment with a pool and gym in the complex. I’m not complaining :P. Oh, and it’s also a bit closer to NZ too, so hopefully friends and family will be able to come and visit us more often than they would’ve if we had ended up in the UK!

Anyway, I’ll post again when I have some more definite news on where I’ll be working and stuff like that

After close to 3 years on www.mindtrip.co.nz, I decided to try something new, perhaps something more relevant to my field (technology). Boy it’s hard thinking of new domain names that haven’t already been taken!

Since I was choosing a new domain name anyway, I figured I might as well try a different blogging engine too. To date, I’ve been a true Textpattern fan. However, everyone else I know that keeps a blog seems to be using WordPress these days. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was missing out on. So I’ve taken the plunge and I’ve switched to WordPress. We’ll see how it all goes!

Things will probably be a bit broken and won’t look finished for a while, but hopefully that won’t last for long. Please bear with me in the meantime!

Plenty has changed since I last blogged about me. In fact, plenty has changed since I last blogged at all. I must admit, I’ve been a bit slack and haven’t been maintaining my blog much recently. I must do better. I really must.

So a quick update – as mentioned in a previous blog post, Chris and I finally decided to pack up and move overseas. We quit our jobs at Trade Me back in November ‘07 and the plan was to travel throughout South-East Asia for 3 months and ultimately end up in London where we would both find IT work and earn the big bucks.

Our 3 months in South-East Asia were amazing. I can’t stress that enough – if you haven’t been… GO! Asia has so much to offer and even the NZ dollar gets you so far! Thailand and Cambodia are cheeeeeap and cheerful, Japan was cold and expensive. Bangladesh was fascinating, Singapore was hot and sweaty, Malaysia was wet and Hong Kong was busy. Anyway, we haven’t done Vietnam yet so we’ll be going back… one day :). If you want to read all about our adventures in Asia, go to TravelStash – Chris And Annie, our very own travel blog.

During our holiday, I was offered two jobs – one at Google in Zurich as a Software Engineer in Test (omg, after so many years and so many interviews!) and another at Next Jump as a Software Engineer in London. Took me a while because it was a really tough decision to make, but eventually I picked Next Jump because the role was much more in line with where I want my career to head. Google then tried to convince me to join them in London instead. Let me tell you – it feels great to be so wanted! Anyway, I stuck with my decision and began the process of applying for the UK HSMP so that I could start at Next Jump as soon as I arrived in London. This application form ended up being a real mission, requiring me to provide all sorts of documentation, most of which I didn’t have access to, especially from some beach resort in Thailand! So my parents and brother did a great job helping me out, and together we got all the documents and forms done and sent off. The most memorable part of this process was jumping onto the back of a dodgy little motorbike with Chris AND a driver (yes, 3 of us!), wearing nothing more than shorts, singlets and jandals (psshhh, who needs a helmet!!), and weaving in and out of traffic on our way down to the main post office in Phnom Pehn to post my drivers’ license off to London. That would be enough to give any traffic cop in NZ a heart-attack!

We ended up in London on the 21st of February ‘08, a little ahead of schedule. Only a couple of days later I received my letter of acceptance from the Home Office in the UK – my HSMP application had been approved. However, it was only then that I found out that I had to go back to NZ to finish off the process and get my ‘entry clearance’. That took me a bit by surprise but what the hell, going back to NZ means I get to see my family and friends a lot sooner than I’d expected which is all good! Chris started looking for work (he needs someone to sponsor his work permit) by sending out a million emails a day to recruiters and large IT companies alike. Hopefully he’ll find the right role for him and we’ll be able to stay in the UK!!

Anyway, I’m writing this article from NZ so right now I’m waiting to have my biometrics meeting and get my entry clearance so I can finally start my new job at Next Jump. I’m really excited and can’t wait to sink my teeth into a new job! Looks like I might even get to go to New York for 3~4 weeks training on my way back to the UK so that should be awesome! Now I just need to get my brain back into geek mode and I should be fine… lol

So I’m finally moving overseas! We’ve quit our jobs at Trade Me, sold pretty much everything we owned and are now in the final steps of packing and preparing for our move.

On Sunday 2nd December (like 5 days away!! :|), Chris and I hop on a flight to Singapore. From there, we have 3 months to make our way up to Hong Kong. On the 3rd of March, 2008, we will board another flight that will land us in London. At that point, we will start looking for work. We’re not sure where we want to live yet but it will all depend on where we can both find work. I have a couple of potentially great offers, one in Zurich and the other in London and I’m having trouble deciding where to go!

Now, for the pièce de résistance – Chris and I have been working like mad to get our travel blog up and working better than ever before we go. The URL for the site is http://www.travelstash.com and the URL for our ‘group’ is http:/www.travelstash.com/chris-and-annie/. There you go, now you can all keep up with our awesome travels!

Anyway, if you have any suggestions / travel tips for cool cats like us in Asia, or if you have a job you think would suit Chris or I, please leave us a comment. Every bit helps!

Other than that, bye bye NZ!

What an awesome season! We lost every game in the last two seasons and this season, the Instant Puddings rose to the challenge and won the entire season! That’s right, we won!! WOOOHOOO!!

Well it’s been ages since I last blogged anything, so I thought I’d get back into it with something quite easy-going. So here we go…

I’ve been playing a bit of indoor soccer for the last few weeks and I’ve been really enjoying it! I’ve been playing for a team called “Instant Pudding” and… well, we’re getting better!! The guys on our team have some great soccer skills but I think all our fitness is lacking somewhat. But we are getting better! You can view our results for last season here.

Tomorrow I start playing for another team, “Dynamo Needarest”, a team set up by Chris and myself made up of a bunch of Trade Me guys and gals. Should be loads of fun but boy am I gonna be knackered and possibly quite sore after two games a week!

Anyhoo, one of my biggest gripes so far has been the fact that I haven’t been able to find indoor soccer boots in my size. I’ve been playing in my running shoes and although it’s worked out ok, I keep stubbing my big toe when I kick the ball or when I run and stop really fast. That’s not so much fun. However, today, I finally found a pair that fits! A pair of Puma children’s size 5!! Doesn’t matter though, what matters is they fit and they were cheap Rebel Sport had quite a good variety today (they didn’t last time I had a look) so I’m very excited about my next game.

Chris also got some new indoor soccer boots today – very nice. I’m sure we’re both gonna play like pros now that we’ve got the right gear (hehe, or not!).

Below is a pic of our hot new shoes.

Our new indoor soccer boots

And below is a photo of what seems to happen to me pretty much every game. Even though I play in a social league, there are some guys on the teams we play against that play real hard. Their high-powered kicks always seem to send the ball straight at me. On the bright side, I’ve saved a few goals for my team!!

A soccer ball imprinted on my thigh

Hehe, I love these article titles.

Anyway, a bit of an update – although not much has really happened since my last update (how boring).

Lets see, since last June, I have…

1. Been a software developer at Trade Me for almost a year (woohoo!) – AND – I haven’t even broken anything yet… heheh… phew


2. Worked on several big projects at Trade Me – namely helping develop the new look and feel of our DVD section (for which I wrote a cool google-suggest style AJAX enabled search but unfortunately you have to be a member of Trade Me to see this), adding support for rural and commercial properties in Trade Me Property (for which I was project lead! Oohh yeah!), and lots of other cool stuff…


3. Re-designed and totally over-hauled Travelblog – now it does cool stuff like geocode cities that you visit on the fly and allows comments to be posted!


4. Been on an awesome 5-week holiday to Europe, San Francisco and Tokyo with Chris – check it out at the “Travelblog”:http://travelblog.mindtrip.co.nz…


5. Been to Noosa for a bit of fun in the warm ocean…


6. Done a bit of web development contracting work on the side…


7. Found out that two or more jobs at once doesn’t leave much time for watching TV…


8. Tested out my interviewing skills by performing 6 technical tests on some developers wanting to work at Trade Me… it’s weird being on this end of the interview…


9. OH and how can I forget… I interviewed for a Software Engineer in Test position at Google AGAIN, but this time in person and in Zurich. Oh, and I didn’t get the job. Again. But you can read all about that here if you’re interested, of course…

... and I think that’s about it really.

Next in the to-do list is…

1. Studying for and hopefully doing some form of Microsoft Certification – I think it’s called Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD)


2. Doing a bit more work on Travelblog so that I can maybe even make it public


3. Working on Chris’ and my new little project… (which is top-secret at the moment so will post about it when a bit closer to it’s go-live date)


4. Plan another looooooooong holiday somewhere, perhaps Asia this time

Yeah. That’s about it.

About a year and a half ago (October 2005), I tentatively applied for a Software Engineer in Test position at Google. When, to my surprise, a recruiter actually emailed me moments later and scheduled my first interview, I panicked and dug out all my old Computer Science notes and textbooks from my 4 years at uni. I had read that Google’s interviews were tough, so I thought I had better get studying. Over the course of a few months, I stressed out heaps, reviewed all my old comp sci notes (really, who remembers how to implement B-Trees, A* Search algorithms and MergeSort after leaving university?) and had 5 hour-long hard-core technical phone interviews with software engineers and testers at Mountain View.

Anyway, although the recruiter I was dealing with told me I had done very well during my interviews and that everyone was very impressed, I was eventually given the bad news – there wasn’t really anything for me at that time. I was pretty gutted but glad that I had gone through it all for the experience – no interview from then on would ever be as difficult as the ones I’d just undergone.

How wrong was I? About a year later (December 2006), one of the recruiters I’d dealt with during my interviews emailed me and asked if there was any chance I could come in for an interview for the same position at their Zurich office while on my holiday in Europe. Apparently they were expanding their test team and thought of me :). Well, since I was going to be in the area anyway, I said sure. However, since I was going to be on a much anticipated holiday, study and stress were not an option. I just accepted the fact that this meant I was going to totally suck at any tricky technical interview questions – but I thought, what the hell, I might as well.

All I can say is: yikes. As you can probably guess, I didn’t get the job, AGAIN. But this time I felt I actually did quite well in the interviews, despite the lack of study. Google flew me (and Chris) down to Zurich from Copenhagen and put us up in a really flash hotel for a night. The following day I had a full day of interviews on-site at the Zurich office. Basically this translates to 5 hour-long interviews with 5 different software engineers and testers. The questions they asked were very technical and covered a lot of different technologies. Towards the end of the day I was totally knackered and found it really hard to think straight, whether in code or in plain old English. 5 hours of hard-core technical questions when you have only a few seconds to think up a good answer and write code on a white board is TOUGH, no matter how much of a geek you are. NOW I’m pretty sure I’ve experienced the toughest interviews I will ever have to.

Anyway, I guess the moral of all this is that if you are given an opportunity to try out for something you really want but are pretty sure you’re not going to get – give it a go anyway. Sure, it’s gonna be hard and you’re gonna stress about it. Sure you’re gonna feel pretty crap about it if it doesn’t work out. But you will gain SOMETHING from it – even if it’s just the experience. In my case, apart from being forced to review a whole bunch of pretty cool geeky stuff that I’d totally forgotten about, I got a cool trip to Zurich, paid for by Google, I got to meet a bunch of really fun and talented software engineers (who by the way took Chris and I out for a great Swiss-fondue dinner after my day of interviews in Zurich) and basically I feel pretty good about the fact that I even got the chance to interview with Google. And as I mentioned above, I am now confident enough to believe that I can sit through any technical interview known to man (or woman)

OMG. This Monkey Kick Off game is horribly addictive. I hate it.

No, I don’t really. I just can’t afford to waste any more time on it.

But that’s alright, coz I beat Chris, which is really all that matters (until he gets a better score than me, in which case I”ll just have to kill him… muahahahah).

I must say, however, that Chris did put up a good fight with his best score – 4734.

Anyway after about 4 (ok maybe 5) hours I was successful in my mission to WIN. That’s right – check out MY score: 4859.

OOOhhh YEAH!! Bring it ON!!