March 19, 2024

Archives for December 2011

How to get a Tech Job?

I was working at my last job for 10 years, which I got from a reference. My old co-worker was working there and called me up that they had a position there. I got an interview and the rest is history. A lot of job opportunities come this way. So it is very important to keep in touch with your friends and ex-coworkers. It’s good to network with people in your field as well. Get on LinkedIn and add all your friends, co-workers, and people you meet in the field. You can also take classes online or at your local community college to add more skills to your resume.

I got laid off in July 2009 due to downsizing. I asked all my friends and could not land an interview. I went on Monster and Dice and posted my resume. I also created a spreadsheet to keep track of what job’s I was applying for. This comes in handy when EDD asks for proof you are looking for work. I applied at over 100 companies. I wanted to work near home, so I looked around my area to see what companies were nearby. I went to their websites and checked under careers. I applied at all the companies that had positions in my field. I modified my resume for each job, to better fit their job requirements.

I always had trouble answering those HR questions you sometimes get asked in interviews. I have been asked those questions on phone and in person interviews. I did some searching online and found this helpful PDF called HR Interview Questions. It contains 64 of the toughest interview questions. It was very helpful going over the questions.

I finally got a call in Sept 2009. I was interviewed on the phone by the company’s recruiting office. I then got another phone interview with the department supervisor. That went well, I answered all the technical questions. I was then called in for an in person interview. It was one of longest interview processes, I have been through. There were 4 scheduled interviews, the first two groups were 8 each of my would be co-workers. A few of the questions I was asked, were the ones I practiced from the HR Interview Questions PDF. The next interview, was with a senior Engineer. My last interview was with the supervisor of the department. All the interviews went well that day. A few days later, I got called and was offered the job 🙂

It took me about 3 months to finally find a job. It does requires some work, don’t give up. I know it is tough out there. I have a few family members having a hard time finding work.

Configuration Error 213:5 on Photoshop CS5 MAC

I had this Configuration Error 213:5 come up recently for an artist I was helping. He was on a MAC running Photoshop CS5. This error came up when we launched Photoshop. It would lock up Photoshop and after clicking ok on the error, Photoshop would just close.

I tried resetting the Photoshop Prefs (Shift+Command+Option when starting Photoshop), but we could not get the reset prefs dialog to come up.  I then tried manually deleting the prefs folder located here

Mac OS X: Users [username]; Library; Preferences; Adobe Photoshop CS5 Settings

I then uninstalled Photoshop by using the uninstall shortcut. I then installed it again and got the
error. I looked online and found this web page from Adobe.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/827/cpsid_82744.html#main_SLStore

It mentions to make sure the permissions on this folder

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SLStore

Match the permissions below.

drwxrwxrwx root admin

That folder already had the correct permissions.

After trying many things, I finally figured it out.
The permissions also had to be applied to the two files inside the
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SLStore folder.

I couldn’t change the permissions from the shell.
I had to do it from the gui.

Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6

Using Finder, navigate to the folder to be modified.
Adobe PCD folder locations
SLStore folder locations
Control+click the folder, and select Get Info.
Expand the Sharing & Permissions section.
Click Details to show the various owner and group options.
Click the lock icon in the lower-right corner.
Enter your administrator username and password when prompted, and click OK.
Set the permissions according to

Mac OS:

Owner = System = read/write
Group = Admin = read/write
Everyone = read/write
Or from the terminal, drwxrwxrwx root admin

Now Photoshop launches fine.