How long do MacBooks last?
I have a 2005 13″ MacBook and 2006 17" and 15" MacBook Pro all chugging along. The MacBook battery is dead, and I upgraded the disk drive on the 17" Pro about three years ago to 1.5tb. Everything's working just fine.P.s., I drove my car over my 17" MacBook Pro in 2009, it survived. I did have to replace the screen and DVD drive. It was an accident, nothing to do with my opinion of the hardware. Curiously, Apple didn't chose to share my story as a testimonial.Update: 8/2016. My 2006 17″ MacBook Pro, which has been turned on 24/7 for much of the past 5 years, is starting to have hard disk errors. Fortunately, I have my photos and music redundantly backed up. I'm moving to an 27″ iMac with an external drive system for archive, etc. The other 2006 MacBook Pro and 2005 MacBook are still chugging away. I use and iPad or iPhone for most of my former laptop stuff. Probably won't replace the laptops anytime soon.Update 6/2017: All three MacBooks are still working. The occasional disk errors on the 17″ continue, but the CPU and screen are still hanging in there. They are 11 and 12 years old.Update 1/2018 : the hard disk errors on the 17" required a reformat. Works better after rebooting.Regarding Apple.Frankly, I liked the 17″ screen. I want a 17″ display. Also, the prices charged by Apple for their 13 and 15″ pro systems as of 2016 are way too much for my taste. The 15″ is priced about the same as what I paid for the 17″ in 2006. These prices should be coming down, Apple! I also so dislike the trend toward less connectors and configuration options. I can live without a DVD drive. A thin form factor is sexy, but that's what iPads are for, IMHO.I ALSO WANT PORTS!!!!If I need a high-powered laptop, I'll probably look PC in the future. I used PCs for 20 years, moving to Mac in 2005 when I got sick and tired of PC class systems inability to manage video, etc, predictably, out of the box (2004–6 or so). The macs “just worked” and I loved them. No futzing.
What does it take to be able to get an engineering management job in Silicon Valley after being in software development for 15 years? What are the must-have skills and the nice-to-have skills?
Hi there,With all due respect I believe I want to direct you to two sources outside of Quora. I would love if more industry professionals could answer your question based on their personal experience but provided that no one has yet done here are some alternatives.Go on LinkedIn and search for people who currently have that position as their title. Make sure you’re looking specifically for what you’d like to do. Example search: “Software Development Manager at Google”Once you’ve found a couple profiles that sync up with your interest, peruse through their profile to see what skills are in common amongst most of them. Try to see what triggered their promotion based on their previous work experience.Next I would suggest performing a job search on either LinkedIn or going straight to the career section of companies you’re interested in. Next, search for openings that match with what your vision is for the next 4 years. Found them? Great. Open up Word or Excel and start typing up the keywords you see amongst the job requirements and skills section. These are the ones you want to make sure are reflected in your resume as well! (If you don’t have these skills then you might want to brush up)In general, many people want to be promoted to a manager for the uptick in salary and to see a title change. Evaluate if you really are manager material by asking yourself personal questions.Do I actually give a shit about managing people? People are emotional, relentless and occasionally awesome. Can I deal with that day to day?Do I just want more money ?Can I foresee myself paving the way for someone’s future ?Can I translate my learnings about software development in a simple or complex way to others ?Do I have a short list of industry best practices that I can easily ramble off ?
Could the Yankees trade Alex Rodriguez during the 2012-2013 offseason?
I can't foresee a scenario in which the Yankees trade A-Rod. I'm sure they'd love to- his contract is already an albatross, and there are five more years left on the deal! The Marlins don't make sense, because A-Rod will soon be unable to play much on the field and the National League doesn't have a DH. I'd be shocked if they even considered it.Instead, A-Rod will have to spend the offseason trying to repair his relationship with Joe Girardi, his teammates, and the Yankees organization as a whole. He may also have to make a public statement of some sort, since the fans here in New York are about this close to crucifying him. Once the hate dies down, A-Rod should be fine. He'll never be the player he once was, but if he can hit around .270/.340/.450 with 20-25 home runs in 130 games, he'll still be quite productive. The Yankees will once again have a productive offense, so A-Rod's lapses relative to his salary won't be as big of an issue as it'd be on another team.Yes, A-Rod's contract is terrible, but if there was a team that could handle it, it's the Yankees.
How did Sundar Pichai get a job at Google?
Sundar Pichai has graduated from some of the best universities of all time i.e IIT, Stanford and the Wharton’s. He made it into production industry with Applied Materials(US semiconductor industry giant) and as a consultant in McKinsey and Company(A management consultancy). Both these jobs that he excelled at were the reason he got into Google around 2004 or 2005. He was into product research stuff in Google and was a key person in the development of products like Chrome and Google Drive. He also helped Google in some crisis with the Bing search engine around 2006. Then around 2010 or 2012 he was the product chief for Google. So obviously the next big thing for him was destined to be was the CEO and he did.Here’s what Chris Beckman(a product manager at Google had said about Pichai):Besides being incredibly talented and hardworking like many of his coworkers and peers, Sundar did a few things:Foremost: he led successful efforts for difficult projects that were core to Google's continued financial success, namely Toolbar and Chrome. Toolbar wasn't an obviously sexy product but it helped defend the presence of Google search on users' computers during a critical period following the revelation of Google's incredible profitability. Chrome extended that mission to improve the user experience of the entire web: keep users on the web and you'll keep them searching on Google.He recruited, mentored, and retained a great team. Sundar's team of product managers had a reputation as being among the best of the best, similar to the reputation of the software engineers within Search Quality.He avoided making enemies. Google has politics like any other large company, and Sundar navigated those politics to make his team successful while inflicting the least possible damage on any other team.So this is probably the essence of his successful career.