Working as a freelancer, I have to monitor job boards, twitter keywords and other news channels so that I’m the first to know when someone needs a Rails developer for a contract project in Montreal or elsewhere. I manage all this information through RSS feeds with the help of Google Reader.
On some rare occasion, I stumble on a job listing site that has no support for RSS feed. This is the case for the Working With Rails job board. Apparently I’m not the only one complaining about the lack of a RSS feed for the job board.
I did some Google searches and found Feed43, a nice little web app that lets you build a RSS feed for any pages on the web. It’s free, intuitive and fairly easy to build your own RSS feed if you’re a little tech savvy. If you’re also looking for Rails gigs, feel free to use my generated WWR job board feed!
About two weeks ago I came across this interesting article by Miguel Carrasco about what Microsoft should do to beat Google at search. It basically states that the next big leap in search will be made by adding context to increase the relevance of search results. I highly recommand the reading.
Context is provided by social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others. By tapping in your social network, your search provider could know where you live, who your friends are, what are your interests and work field. These are all information that can be use to add relevance to search.
So for example, if my search provider knows I’m a tennis fan, searching for “US Open” should bring up results about the tennis competition and not the golfing one.
One annoyance I encounter on a daily basis is with Google Maps. I live in Montreal and I would say that about 95% of the queries I make are for addresses in Montreal. Shouldn’t Google know this and default all my searches to Montreal? Most of the time Google just gives me irrelevant results if I only specify a street address. Hopefully, the map searching providers will take advantage of the latest innovations made in Firefox 3.1 on geolocation to provide better search results based on my current location.
The big fear when it comes to integration of social networks with search services is privacy. Quite frankly, with hundreds of “friends” on Facebook and LinkedIn, I already have restricted the information that I share on these sites to a minimum. And are my address, interests and work related infos really private information? To me, these are all information I’m ready to trade in favor of better search results.
Posted: October 5th, 2008 | Author:Pierre Olivier Martel | Filed under:Technology | Comments
I have been wondering for some time now what other developers read when they are fresh out of bed with coffee in hand! If you’re like me, you have this long list of technology feeds you track every day using your favorite feed reader to keep you updated on the latest news and best practices of your field. And god knows it evolves fast in our specific field!
So today I’m taking the lead and making my technology feeds on Netvibes public. You can have a look at :
I divided my readings in seven different categories :
Tech News
Tech Blogs
Tech Tips
Dev News
Ruby News
Ruby Blogs
Company Blogs
Comic (Mostly nerdy humor!)
My choice of news sources and bloggers is highly influenced by my location (Montreal) and my current interests (mostly Ruby and Rails).
Your turn now! Why don’t you make your Google Reader or Netvibes feeds public and post it on your blog or in this comment section. Or at least, be a fan and let me know about your favorite bloggers and share it with other developers!
About me
Passionate web developer living in Montreal and hacking in Ruby on Rails available for contracts and freelance work.
Working as a freelancer, I have to monitor job boards, twitter keywords and other news channels so that I’m the first to know when someone needs a Rails developer for a contract project in Montreal or elsewhere. I manage all this information through RSS feeds with the help of Google Reader.
Passionate web developer living in Montreal and hacking in Ruby on Rails available for contracts and freelance work.