Job hunting-feel out this questionaire...

If your in my position (finished university)you will be now job hunting. Depending on what sites you go to, instead of wanting your CV, they want to ask you questions about certain criteria's that they will be judging you on. These questions will be different on every website you do, but the type of questions will be near enough the same. Instead of typing out your answer on every site you go to, I would recommend you make a document which has these type of questions on there, so when you go to a website which asks a question you have previously answered, you can copy and paste your answer and then tweak it to fit what that website requires of you.

Here is some questions to get you thinking about:

1. Describe a situation when you identified a new way of doing something, which affected other people. How did you convince the others that it was the right thing to do?
2. Describe a recent situation when you have had to overcome a challenge. What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve these?
3. Describe a situation which demonstrates how you applied your analytical skills to solve a problem
4. Describe a time when you have worked within a team. What attributes did you bring to the team? What did you learn about your own behavior in this situation and how would you change your behavior in a similar situation in the future?
5. What are your spare time interests? Please explain why these are important to you and include any areas of responsibility

Specific questions

Why have you chosen to join <insert company name>? What has influenced your choice of business area and what particularly interests you in the <insert company scheme>?

Modelling/problem question

1. Quantitative Analysis This Refers to a situation where the analytical questions have been established and you need to produce a concrete and quantified solution using numerical analysis and /or modelling. Please describe:
   1. Your role
   2. Any analytical techniques you used and how you used them.
   3. How you used available data or produced it.
   4. How you assessed the accuracy and usefulness of your results
2. Drive for results It is important that OR analysts plan their work clearly and can respond to clients requests within deadlines, being proactive and using initiative when problems arise. Please describe:
   1. Your role in the project;
   2. Your objective and the steps you took to plan and monitor the project;
   3. How you dealt with challenges, both foreseen and unexpected.

You may not get these exact question, but it will be along the same lines as these. If you are job hunting good luck out there, and be careful of spam website and spam job posting.

php open, write and download a file

I have spend today and yesterday trying to make html write into a file and then download that file. The first objective was to open a file.

<?php
$filename="LinkTestText.txt";
$file=fopen($filename,'w+');
?>

Seems straight forward but i got an error

fopen(LinkTestText.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied.

Okay okay calm down all I have to do is change permission of the file. <long time doing a google search> (many frustrating clicking and shouting at the computer (glad it doesn't have emotions)). On all <exaggeration> the forums no one mentioned a php function called "chmod"!!! Why this is what i'm looking for, okay so lets code it.

<?php
$filename="LinkTestText.txt";
chmod($filename, 0777);
$file=fopen($filename,'w+');
?>

Error appears:

chmod(): Operation not permitted in /file/path/to/that/ruddy/file.php

Rubbish, lets look on php.net to see if they have an answer <Quick look> ooh they have an answer. What one person says is use File Transfer Protocol (ftp) to change the permission, Huzzah an answer finally.

<?php
$filename="LinkTestText.txt";
$row['username']="Joe Bloggs";
$row['password']="passw0rd";
$ftp_details['ftp_user_name'] = $row['username'];
$ftp_details['ftp_user_pass'] = $row['password'];
$ftp_details['ftp_root'] = '/file/path/to/that/ruddy/';
//website address
$ftp_details['ftp_server'] = '10.0.1.200';
function chmod_11oo10($path, $mod, $ftp_details){
// extract ftp details (array keys as variable names)
extract ($ftp_details);
// set up basic connection
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user_name, $ftp_user_pass);
// try to chmod $path directory
if (ftp_site($conn_id, 'CHMOD '.$mod.' '.$ftp_root.$path) !== false){
$success=TRUE;
}
else {
$success=FALSE;
}
// close the connection
ftp_close($conn_id);
return $success;
}
chmod_11oo10($filename, "0777", $ftp_details);
$file=fopen($filename,'w+');
fwrite($file,"Writing a lovely string to a file");
fclose($file);
$file=fopen($filename,'w+');
?>

Good so all we need to do now is activate ftp and then work out a way to force a download. Here is a link i found earlier

<?php
//http://php.net/manual/en/function.readfile.php
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/download');
//it will be called
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Link test test.txt"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filename));
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($filename);
exit;
?>

Done. One last thing the whole of it HAS to appear before "any actual output is sent, either by normal HTML tags, blank lines in a file, or from PHP.". The only thing that is missing is why i put 0777 as the permission, to be honest i have no idea, just saw the number keep on popping up on a couple of forums.

Film reviews rankings (no maths here)

I manage to see a film in the cinema nearly every Tuesday, so i do see a lot of film. When I rank film, i normally base it on how much i want someone to see the film in the full cinema experience, this is normally confusing as some bad films get high reviews because they look incredible.

So I have come up with a different system, this is based on DVD collection:

1. Absolutely rubbish film, if it comes on the TV, change the channel.
2. Don't waste your money on buying the DVD, Just watch it on the TV.
3. I don't think you should own the DVD, so just rent it.
4. The film is lacking something, but the DVD is still worth owning.
5. Watch in the cinema and definitely buy the DVD.

Unfortunately I do own at least one film that belongs to each of the different ranks. <sigh>

Backing Samuel Hansen Relatively Prime

Right im backing it mainly because of his twitter updates which were summed up on Peter Rowletts blog. Some of them sound interesting

Wondering if you can musically represent a function? Support Relatively Prime and I will have the chance to answer

If you want to hear maths (or math if your from certain parts of the world) stories that aren't well known but deeply fascinating, go on and support Relatively Prime. Heres a video to wet your appetite.

MSc Project website

I did originally set the website up as being just one big huge html file. It became too big especially when i started doing Material Properties Module (at the moment Material Properties Modules is still very big and is a bit slow on loading). This also meant it was slow as well. Now being a student (still) I get to have some free webspace and hosting, I know amazing. So all my pages i've done so far are up on the website. Just to let you know don't click on any links between and including 'General Equation Module' and 'User Module' you will get a error message saying page not found. Any suggestion to improve the site please leave a comment.

html page advance php

I just found out when I did Material Properties module that the code was around 109,000 lines so it was being sluggish, so the idea was to store information on the server, from w3 school and there were two ways of doing server bits. ASP wasn't recommended as it was oldish and also pc only, so i had a look at PHP. It stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, I hate self referencing, such a pain.

PHP is the code which gets processed by Apache on the server and MySQL I think is where you store whatever you want.

According to a couple of websites on snow leopard, you don't need to install php it's already on there, you just need to do a couple of tweaks.

A couple of things the websites forgot to mention was to view the PHP you don't view it as a file in the internet browser e.g. file:///Users/james_p_clare/Sites/MScWebsite/linktest.html you have to view it on Localhost so it will look something like this http://localhost/~james_p_clare/MScWebsite/PhysicaModule.php. Also to view PHP file have to have the extension .php otherwise it won't work. I spent two days not knowing the last two facts. Ahhhhhh.

If your not a mac user w3 schools does direct you to a website which lists other OS. Although a google search maybe better. good luck

IMA 14th Early Career Mathematician Conference

I went to this on Saturday mainly for the career talk which was held in the morning and bits of the afternoon. The conference was held at the University of Leicester. And during some of it people were twittering #ecm14. Adrian Hamilton took the talk on career planning workshop. We first looked at what to include on a CV, the very broad first:

1. Profile (Pen Picture of facts)
1. Management level
2. Business Areas
3. Functions carried out
4. skills, abilites, strenghts
2. Achievements
1. Some selected achievements
2. Excerpts from experience
3. Career Progression
1. Start from most recent
2. Dates, name of organisation, what it does
3. Key tasks and responsibilities
4. Other Relevant Facts
1. Education, qualifications, training
2. Outside work experience, interests, personal

He did mention that CV change over time, the format I mean but they should about 2 pages no more. Any more and the employer will get bored, as he/she has too see loads of these.
We then did a group discussion on identifying Achievements and then trying to get as many doing words as possible to show what you have accomplished. He also mentioned as a side note that apparently there a preconception that mathematicians aren't good with money, so if you can show you are good with money it will be no bad thing (nudge, nudge).
We also looked at the different ways to search and apply for jobs.

Cold Approach
It's simple, one letter. Useful if growing company. But there may be no job available. Also the chances of success are small.

The other methods most people know:
Contact Networks
Response to Adverts
Recruitment Agencies

The Contact Network seemed to be the best way of getting a job you want. We also looked at Referral Interviews. This was completely new to me. If you have some one in a contact network and you ask them about getting a job in a particular sector, they can refer you to someone who may have more knowledge about the goings on.

The first step is to get referred to someone. Next write them a letter about what you want to get out of it, these referrals are not for you to ask them for a job but talk to them your career plan in general sense, also send them your CV. Next to phone them to confirm a meeting. This is where you mention your letter and make clear that you are not after a job. Mention that it will not take long and you know their time is valuable. If they say they can't help you, stroke their ego tell them they have vast knowledge about this particular field.
If it all goes well hold the meeting, then send a thank you letter for meeting that person.

We also spent some time looking a questions that may be asked i.e.
What recruitment agencies specialise in this sector?
What sort of papers or source should I look at for job advertisement?
Realistic Salary?
Do you other people that could help me out and me more information in these sort of areas we have discussed?
Is my cv okay?
can I hear about your experience.

We then looked at responding to to job adverts, difficult interview questions, do and don't of interviews. Then each person was given a snippet from Mathematics Today (February 2011). This featured a bit about job options and describing where certain people work. One option some one mentioned was Transportation planner. Then a list of website to find jobs:

1. Datatech Recruiment
2. DSTL- Defence science and Technology Laboratary
3. Government Actuary's Department
4. Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ
5. Government Operational Research Service
6. Government Statistical Service GSS Jobs
7. Matchtech Group
8. Met Office
9. Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry PSI
10. Office for National Statistics
11. The inside career guide to Actuarial Work
12. The institute of Actuaries
13. Transport Planning Opportunities

At the end of this there was a talk by Peter Rowlett about mathematics teaching and learning. Aperiodic tiling by Edmund Harris and a talk by Steve King on something to do with Rolls Royce.

As a side note they did say for students you can join the ima for free or £5 fee.