Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact Review

The review for this phone may be coming a late since it is 1 or 2 generations behind of what Sony has produced, but I have to write about the phone just because I like it so much. The Sony Xperia XZ1 compact is probably one of the only smart phones left that is below 5 inches, which for most people doesn’t matter, but for me that is one of the biggest selling points. Another big selling point is that you can now get the phone below $500. That’s not a bad price for a phone that has the specs of a flagship phone. This means that you get all the power of a flagship phone for under $500 and in a compact size. The phone has 4GB of Ram with a snapdragon 835 processor which gives this phone plenty of power to do whatever you need. It also has one of the best battery life’s that I have ever had with a smartphone. I can go all day using the phone and by the time I am done it has around 60% battery life left. It also has a stamina mode and a super stamina mode. The second mode goes a little overboard on shutting down almost all functionality of the phone but it does the job and conserves battery life considerably. The phone also has the Android 8.0 on it and can also be upgraded to Android 9.0 if you want the newest functionality. However do remember that with the newest OS means that this phone can’t be rooted so don’t try to do it and definitely don’t unlock the bootloader. This will cause a lot of the phones functionality to stop working and there is no way to go back. The phone has a very nice display even though it is only 720p. The phone also has a slot for expandable memory although it can no longer be used to store apps on. You can still store all the photos and videos you want on the expandable memory. The phone come with 32GB of storage which is decent although about 40% – 50% is used already with the OS and the pre-installed apps. The main set of apps that come pre-installed are the whole suit of Google apps and Amazon apps. Most of the pre-installed apps can only be disabled and not completely deleted. Other then that this phone is a great option to consider if you are looking at getting a new phone.

Do you have a xperia xz1? Leave a comment telling us how you like the phone.

The Writer’s Glove

If you are a developer then you have probably ran into the problem that your hands get cold after a long session of typing. Keeping your hands extended from the body can make it hard for some people to keep heat in their hands. It is very hard to find a solution because to type efficiently you need to have your bare hands, or at least your bare finger tips. Although if you try those gloves that have no fingertips on them then you quickly realize that this is not the perfect solution. The best way to keep your hands warm would be to have gloves that cover your hands fully but still allow you to type efficiently. This has been accomplished by “The Writer’s Glove”, which granted was developed for writers in mind, but we developers are writing technically. These gloves cover your entire hand, but they are thin enough that you can still feel the keyboard. They are made out of 100% silk, which makes them feel great on the hands. It does take a few typing sessions to get completely used to the feeling of typing with them on, but it becomes just as easy as typing without them. They also make a pair of the gloves that allows you to use the touchscreen of your phone, which means you won’t have to constantly take them off to deal with any notifications you get on your phone. You can get them from here and also supply them with the code SoftwareUpdates to get a discount on your order today.

How long does it take for a Associate programmer to get up to speed with a project?

This is a question that many young programmers ask themselves and can be very shocking to find the answer is that it takes months before you will become even somewhat familiar with the code base that the company has you working in. It truly takes a determined person to be a computer engineer because you have to deal with constant failure and learn that it is alright to fail. You can’t know everything off the bat and it takes time to learn all of the nuances and logic behind what made the project you are on so far. Sadly when your teachers told you that reading other developers code would be the things that you do most they were completely right. It is a good habit to get into before you get an actual job because the main way that you can get going on a project is by reading through that projects code and understanding what other people have written. This is easier said then done and can be very frustrating, especially at first when you have no experience. This however will get easier the more that you do it, so after your first project then the next few projects will get easier and easier until you can get up to speed with the project without much effort at all. So don’t give up and keep at, because you will get it eventually.

Is a computer science degree worth it?

Some people are wondering if it is even necessary to get a computer science degree nowadays, especially with the cost of college steadily increasing. Even big companies like GOOGLE are getting rid of the requirement of having a degree in order to get a job with them. However, I still think that getting a degree can be beneficial and even justify the cost of the degree. This is because most of the time when you learn to program you mainly are just learning how to use a programming language. This is true for code bootcamps as well since they only give you a crash course in how to understand to use a programming language. Usually the bootcamps use a language that the companies that they have contacts with use. This makes it easy for you to easily get a job with that specific company. A degree makes getting a job in any programming language easier. A degree in computer science however will teach you much more then just a programming language. A degree will teach you the problem solving skills that are needed to tackle a lot of the problems a software engineer faces in their daily job. It will also teach you the fundamentals of programming that will allow you to pick up any programming language easily. This means that what you learn when you get a degree in computer science will allow you to keep up with the field in the long run and not just get you a job at a local company that will be hard to get away from without the necessary training again. This basic knowledge from a college is something that can’t be overlooked when thinking about what you want to do with your life. This does not mean however that it is wise to go to a very expensive college and be a hundred thousand dollars in debt. It would be better to find a college that is in a reasonable price range and get the degree for cheaper.

But I haven’t used the knowledge from my degree on the job!

This is a common statement from many people who graduate from college and then get a job as a software developer. The statement is actually true in some way. That is because all of the things that you do in college are mainly building blocks and learning how to solve problems, while the job requires you to solve much more difficult problems with the latest, or most outdated, technologies. This means you are tackling a very different thing in the real world then you are at a college. That is because college is not supposed to prepare you for the job like a bootcamp. College, like I said before, is to prepare you to tackle a wide variety of problems by giving you the foundation to problem solve fast and learn new technologies easily. This means you probably won’t see a lot of direct correlations between what you have learned from college and what you will do on the job.

A Programmers Lifestyle

There are many health concerns when it comes to having a job as a programmer. This is because at their job they are very sedentary. Even if the job provides a stand up desk a programmer can easily start having health issues. It is very important to have some sort of hobby that you do outside of work in order to stay active. Even if that hobby is going for a walk in a park every other day, which will also help keep you from experiencing mental exhaustion. Also make sure to keep your keyboard at the edge of your desk which will force you to not rest your wrists on the table. This can lead to wrist pain. With keeping up with those two habits it makes things a lot easier on you in the long run. Although there are many more things that can be done to stay healthy. One thing is to avoid caffeine as much as possible, even though it may be tempting to drink a ton of caffeine in order to get extra work done it is probably better to just get some sleep and try in the morning. This also goes for food, it is tempting to eat pizza most of the time since it is easy but getting into the habit of cooking your own food will do a great deal for your health, and your wallet.

Summary of a healthy programmers lifestyle:

Have an active hobby
Use proper technique when typing and position your keyboard accordingly
Avoid copious amounts of caffeine
Get plenty of sleep
Cook your own food

If anyone has any more suggestions for young programmers to stay healthy then leave a comment.

Lynx: A text based browser

I have recently stumbled upon this text based web browser and it is really nice for when you just want to read a lot of text conveniently on a screen. It also keeps you from using youtube and other similar services. This will also prevent you from seeing so many adds on the internet and pop up adds are a thing of the past. Not only that you can easily customize a terminal to look how you like and the font that you want. So this makes reading in a terminal very enticing. So if you don’t like how the browser is displaying your content then it may be time to try out a text based browser. You can get Lynx from their website.

If you have used this text based editor then leave a comment below to tell everyone how you like it.

Dolphin on Mac

Dolphin is a Gamecube emulator that you can use to play any old game from the Gamecube. This can bring back really great memories of playing classic games like “Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2”. It even lets you play multiplayer on those games across the internet. So you can easily connect with old friends and play like you used to do when everyone was little. There are also ways to get true online gaming for some games, if they still have a server going or you make your own server for the game. It is extremely simple to set up the program and start playing the game right away. You can find any old Gamecube game online to download. You can download Dolphin at their website.

If you are interested in emulators then you may want to know about OpenEMU for macs.

OpenEmu for Mac

OpenEmu is an emulator for the Mac that will allow you to play ROMs for any old game system that you want. This means that you can easily go back in time to any old game that you could possibly want to play. OpenEmu is really nice because you can have all of the old games you used to play in one place instead of having multiple emulators to play different ones. It also has easy functionality to save the state on any game or to put in cheat codes. This is because it is just a tab at the bottom of the screen that is easily accessed. It also makes it easy to load games into the emulator and even keeps track of the games. Reliving the experience of any old game is now easy to do on any Mac computer.

If you are a fan of the old Playstation game “Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories” then go download the game and use my article, Yu-Gi-Oh ForbiddenMemories Walkthrough, in order to beat the game one last time.

EagleTec Mechanical Keyboard

I finally got my hands on a mechanical keyboard that has blue switches on it. Along with a nice blue backlight. I have only been using the keyboard for a little over a week now but I wouldn’t want to go back to my previous keyboard. I don’t really know what I have been doing all this time, or I guess I should say I don’t know what I was settling for before getting this keyboard. I really like these blue switches, even the noise they make and they do make a lot of noise with this keyboard. This is really not a work keyboard, unless you have your own office. They keys feel really nice and the top of the keyboard is made out of aluminum with a nice brushed finish it looks like. The bottom of the keyboard is made of a hard plastic that feels pretty durable. This keyboard only comes with two different backlight settings, which is static and breathing. It also has an easy option to shut off the backlight so it doesn’t bother you at night. It is also a cheap compared to a lot of mechanical keyboards at around $40, so you don’t go broke just for trying out a mechanical keyboard.

Click Here to get it on amazon.

Betterment: Is it right for you?

Betterment is an investing app that is all about hands off investing. Essentially you are able to set up a goal that you want to reach and then just deposit money into the account. It will give you an estimate in how much you need to put into the account in order to meet the goal that you have set. If you don’t have a specific goal then that is alright. You can use it as a savings account really, just because the savings accounts that banks offer have no real value anymore. The app allows you to even set up automatic deposits from a bank account, which means you really don’t have to think about saving money. I would suggest that whatever you plan on saving per month that you actually split that up into weekly deposits. One of the reasons for this is because it seems like Betterment doesn’t want to readjust your investments until you put more money into the account. This means if you do it weekly then it should keep adjusting the account in order to operate better. Also putting money in weekly usually means you will actually put in more money by the end of the year then if you did things monthly. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time at first looking at what the account is doing because nothing is really going to change until you have at least $1000 in the account. After that point you may want to start keeping an eye on the account, about once a month at most. Even then it won’t seem like to much money will be earned, but this account is for long-term savings really. Don’t bother trying to do short-term savings with this type of account. Overall Betterment does what it sets out to do and even though you won’t get crazy returns on your money it should at least be a better place to stick excess money then a savings account.

Do you have any experience with Betterment? Let us know in the comments.