8 Tips To Crack A Coding Interview!

IT jobs are hot right now. The IT sector has number of new job openings. Programmers and software developers are going to have tons of new job opportunities in this year. Cracking the job interview is most difficult part of hiring process. The coding interview can be nightmare for candidates. Here are eight things that you need to know if you want to crack the coding interview.

1. How To Code Algorithms

If you are applying for job of software engineer, it is obvious that you need to know how to code. Writing day-to-day coding scripts is little different than coding an algorithm to solve software problem. Hiring team might ask questions like, ‘Write an algorithm to find an element in a linked list and move that element to the end of that list.’ A candidate must know how to program algorithms.

If you have little knowledge of data structures and how to implement different kind of algorithms, this should be easy thing for you. You can find plenty of resources online that can get you started. If you practice good enough to be able write code to sort an array then, you should be able to face interview.

2. Code Without Tools

Programmers are well-used to number of tools, emulators, IDEs, frameworks that make the programing task much more easier. Java programmers prefer IntelliJ or Eclipse to avoid using plugins. While, Node.js developers dont need any IDE, they can use simple text to program. IDEs are powerful but when you go for an interview, hiring team might tell you to write the code without any tool. If you practice sketching out code without any framework and tools, you may be able to easily chalk it out during interview.

3. Have A Portfolio

Having programing portfolio ads value to your resume. You should have coded something in past while going to an interview. Hiring team is more likely to hire the candidate with some background than a blank slate. If you do not have any portfolio, you need not worry too much. You can slowly start building your portfolio. You can build mobile apps and deploy them on app stores. If you are interested in open source, you can build the code and put it on GitHub. You can also contribute to existing open source projects.

4. Think Out Loud

When an interviewer asks a question, think out loud. Think the right path to address to the problem. You must now scratch your head or making the confused face. No matter how awkward, uncomfortable you feel, try to think the way to solve the problem. Whatever you are thinking, talk it out. When you are trying to solve the problem given by interviewer, talk through it. It will add bonus points to your performance.

5. Don’t Argue, Blame Or Make Excuses

Some candidates have habit to argue to prove the point. If you dont know the answer to the question, you should simply tell that. There is no point in arguing over anything. If you dont know the answer to specific question asked by the interviewer, don’t be like, ‘You didn't ask me it right!” Don’t start blaming your university professor for not teaching that part. It is very bad sign to make excuses like you are not feeling well etc. Take responsibility of your own actions and simply say, “I don’t know the answer.”

6. Don’t Give Up

Interviewer is going to ask hard questions on purpose. He wants to test your ability to face the most difficult situations. If interviewer is throwing most difficult questions that you havent even heard of. Don’t drop your sword. Try a little, a little more. Hiring team will respect you more if you try hard. No company wants an employee who whines about how hard something really is! Don’t give up, keep trying to answer.

7. Test Your Code

No code is perfect. There could be some changes that you might need to make in future while integrating some new feature in the app. You must make your code look like you have given your most to it while programming. Programmers judge other programmers by some standards. So, pretend like your code may have some errors and test it through before telling interviewer that you are done with the coding. As a programmer, it is very important that you test every line of code that you write.

8. Feedback

When you build a product, you build along with your client or end user. Even though it is hard to achieve the epic level of perfection. It doesn't hurt to ask interviewer about his opinion on your code. Some people might think it is irrelevant but, you will make interviewer feel important in this way. Ask for interviewer’s feedback. Specially when you don’t know the answer to the problem, you must ask their opinion on your code. This will show your interest in learning and ability to understand the code. 

10 Interesting Facts About Bill Gates

Most people know very few things about the computer wizard, Bill Gates. He is the second richest man in the world. Bill Gates co-founded one of the most successful tech companies in the world. There are many facts about Bill Gates that are unknown to the world. Today we have listed ten surprising things about Bill Gates that you probably didn’t know.

1. Bill Gates wrote his first computer program on a computer manufactured by General Electric when he was a teenager. He used the computer at lab in Lakeside Prep School. The first thing he built was a version of tic-tac-toe game, where you could play against the computer.

2. Bill’s school soon realized his passion for computer programming and they let him use school’s computer program for scheduling students in class. Bill altered the code to place himself in between interesting girls of class.

3. Bill Gates dropped out Harvard University to start Microsoft. He dropped out in 1975 to devote all his time to Microsoft’s growth and development.

4. Bill Gates was fond of fast driving. He loved to go on long drive in car. He was once arrested in New Mexico for driving without license. Police filed him for overspeeding and breaking the signal in 1977.

5. Gates used to take airline coach till 1997. He purchased his own airplane after that. He has named it as ‘big splurge’.

6. Bill Gates believes in charity. He has kept only $10 million each for his children. He says, “Leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them.” Bill Gates’s net worth is $81.1 billion.

7. The only regret that Bill Gates has is not knowing any foreign language. He says, it’s the biggest regret in his life so far. He always wanted to learn a foreign language.

8. Bill Gates has wrote a blog post that states what he would had done if Microsoft hadn’t worked out. Gates says that if Microsoft hadn’t worked out, he would have been a researcher for artificial intelligence. He has always been interested in that field.

9. Bill Gates is fond of music. He says Weezer is his favorite band. He also mentions U2 as his favorite. Gates is still waiting for Spinal tap to go back on tour.

10. Even though Bill Gates spends most of his time at his Foundation. He is still associated with Microsoft as personal agent. He keeps track of all the activities of the company and also guide the management team. 

5 Software Bugs Which Remained Unnoticed For Decades

 There have been several software bugs which get detected after their long-time presence in the software. Other vulnerabilities in the same library might get fixed, but these latent bugs keep silent over years. For decades, these critical bugs simply go unnoticed and it's quite a common factor now. There are many reasons why a bug stays undetected or sometimes ignored too. Here we present a list of five such bugs which have lived for a long time without the knowledge of developers.

1. OpenBSD’s head bug: 

This bug was present in the software for 37 years and two months before it got fixed in October, 2014. The bug is actually quite older than OpenBSD, which was born just 18 years ago. Though it was fixed, the bug remained in some BSD derivatives like NetBSD and the bug was present when OpenBSD was created in 1996. The problem was fixed in October 2014 after the previous fix was merged into OpenBSD.

2. Excel’s year 1900 problem: 

This 27-year-old bug is not resolved yet. When Microsoft was creating the first version of Excel for Windows in mid 80s, it was competing against IBM's Lotus 1-2-3, the dominant PC spreadsheet of that time. Microsoft ported spreadsheets from Lotus, copying a Lotus bug as well into Excel and it started treating 1900 as a leap year. To make the date calculations easier, Lotus engineers ignored this bug as it was considered as a minor issue. This behaviour was followed in Microsoft Excel too and the bug is still present 27 years later, as fixing it would lead to several problems.

3. Bash’s Shellshock vulnerability: 

This vulnerability was fixed in September, 2014. Bash shell was created in 1989 as a part of the GNU project. It was aimed to replace Bourne shell and over a period of time it became an integral part of all Unix-based systems, ranging from BSD to Linux and also Mac OS X. It contained a severe vulnerability which remained unnoticed for decades. In 2014 the bug was detected by Linux developer Stephane Chazelas asnd it was named Shellshock. Web servers were at huge risk and it would also allow hackers to take remote control over a server and create botnets. The first patches were released in September, 2014.

4. Windows’ NT Virtual DOS Machine problem: 

When Windows NT, the first 32-bit system by Microsoft, was released in 1983, the Windows NT Virtual DOS Machine allowed all the 16-bit software to run on 32-bit NT computers. 16-bit programs and DOS were well-accessible on the 32-bit versions of Windows NT, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2009 and Windows 7. Then 16 years later Google researcher Tavis Ormandy discovered a severe bug in the NT VDM code which could allow a hacker to enjoy privileges to the SYSTEM level. The issue was fixed in March 2010.

5. IE6’s Flash exploit: 

Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 6 became the dominant web browser after its launch in 2001 and grabbed 90 per cent of the market. Naturally it became a popular target for hackers. It was highly vulnerable to exploits and it was named one of the worst software ever. Vulnerabilities are still there is IE6. In April 2014 a Flash exploitation was detected in IE6 which could allow remote code execution by hackers.

Courtesy: IT World 

8 Tips To Improve Cyber Security This Year!

Cyber security has become really important aspect over last few years. We can always leverage cutting-edge technology to address to new threats. The new practices and human behaviour can lead to cyber crime free year or at least we can minimize the risks. Here are eight tips to secure your cyber footprints. 1. Cyber Hygiene Majority of cyber attacks are attempts of failure of basic cyber hygiene such as patching vulnerable systems. You can apply basic cyber hygiene behaviours to mitigate majority of known attack vectors. Users can implement the cuticle basics and organisations can make productive use of limited resource to focus on more difficult cyber challenges. 2. Monitor Your Network You need to maintain document of inventory and connections of your network. In case of organization, you can count and document the type of device, its location and assigned owner of IT assets. The assets include, computer setup, smartphones, thumb drives, printers, routers and servers. You can implement policy that requires users to create and maintain complete and accurate IT asset inventory. 3. Key Security Settings You need to identify hardware and applications running in your business. The focus should be on operating systems as they are the key element behind every attack. You should research trusted and secure configuration for each type of hardware and application. Implementing key security settings can protect your system from basic fundamental attacks. 4. Control As a head of hierarchy, you can implement the process to manage identities and credentials for authorized users. You can limit access to devices containing sensitive data. Associating facilities to authorized users, processes or devices is the best way of keeping tabs on who accesses your system. You can educate people in your organization about how to use their account credentials. Implementing a system that keeps log of access and usage can help you track cyber bullies. 5. Patch Time to time patching of bugs and issues is best practice of maintaining confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems and information. You can review technology asset inventory of your organization and identify software operations on these assets. Reviewing patches, updates and revisions can protect you from third-party cyber attacks. 6. Repeat Cyber security threats continue to evolve over time so, ultimately cyber security is ongoing process that requires constant updates. You need to repeat the security measures after equal interval of time. The repeat list should ensure that each cycle of individual priority has appropriately met and there is no fall or crack in cyber health maturity. 7. Human Factor Even though we live in online era, human factor still plays great role in organisation’s cyber security. You cannot assume that everyone understands his individual responsibility when it comes to cyber security. Small amount of workforce doesn't believe that they are responsible for security of their networks. You need to train and educate your employees about the cyber hygiene and best practices. This is the only way you can improve organisation’s security in this year. 8. Collaboration Regardless of size, cyber threats impact all businesses. The threats are pretty complex. The number of threats and severity is too high for any small workforce to handle. You need to use the power of collaborative energy to fight against cyber threats.  Courtesy:- efytymes