I recently participated in Round 1 of the Lead To Win program. This was an amazing experience and I got approved for Round 2 starting in end of June. This is a step towards the major league of Startups and Ecosystems. On the last day we had we had David Lisk (Industrial Technology Advisor) present. He asked us 4 questions that are supposed to test your readiness and commitment to being an entrepreneur. I found great benefit in answering them while reflecting on the session.

Hey all, We're having a few technical difficulties setting up the wave. We have recently found out that embedding a public wave does not make it visible to the rest of the web (d'uh). Rest assured we are looking into ways either exporting the contents once done waving. In the meantime Wave users can view the progress so far. ANNOUNCEMENT: If you would like a Wave invite leave a comment with your desired Gmail address or email contact_at_filipmares.com (remember to replace '_at_' with '@'). Enjoy! [wave id="googlewave.com!w+E_mMOEfZA"]

A lot of time has passed since i focused on blogging. I've been mostly tweeted out my tech thoughts and sharing (or over sharing) what i thought was interesting. I kept thinking of a way to revolutionize the way blogs are done. There is a lot of effort that goes into a post. I personally do not have that much time to compose and gather all my thought at once. I'd love to write short blurbs and patch them all together over time. I guess that is why i am not a writer/journalist. As much as i would love it. A  new idea of publishing content came to me on a late night of browsing the internet and waving on Google Wave. A close friend of mine and myself wave back and forth to keep in touch. We mostly talk about technology and web trends. I quickly realized that our heated debates and sometimes agreements on matters might make for a good editorial. I was always a fan of conversations and i guess that's why i love twitter and Facebook so much. The ultimate thing that opened my eyes to the entertainment aspect of blog posts based around a discussion was a piece by Engadget on the Nokia N97. I was blown away by the sheer creativity of doing a blog post mimicking "mail correspondence". If you have not read the piece i suggest you have a look and i guarantee you will be in tears laughing by the end of the review. From all this we derive my next creation: "2Guys1Wave"! 2Guys1Wave will be a blog maintained between my friend Raj Paramerswaran and myself. We will be creating blog posts consisting of a Waves in which we discuss a certain topic. Each blog post will hopefully evolve over time into what we hope will be a semi-professional blog post.  We plan on discussing such topics as:

• technology
• gadgets
• web services and applications
• events
• cars
• anything else that might interest us at the time

The posts will be on a weekly to bi-weekly basis as all changes we will do will be reflected throughout the week. We won't be discussing anything we  haven't had experience with as I'd like there to some credibility to what we do. The only time we will do that will be when discuss product rumors and predictions. I will be posting the first few posts on here till we get Wordpress setup just the way we want it for the blog. I'll announce the launch as soon as it's ready. Check back in a couple of day when i will be posting our first 2Guys1Wave post on the Apple iSlate rumors. Just in time for the January 27th announcement!

During the 2009 ‘Reading Week’ (Feb. 16th - Feb20th) I interviewed with Microsoft for a Software Development Engineer (SDE) internship. Throughout the day I had the “pleasure” of interviewing with some of the greatest minds behind the Windows Live Experience team. It was a dream come true and if only this would have been an interview I was conducting I might have left a little less troubled.

My day started out I’m building 19 which is know as the Recruiting Building. This was equipped with Microsoft’s latest and greatest. From Touch Smart PCs, to XBox 360s with Rockband and of course the Microsoft Surface. Needless to say I was drawn immediately to the surface and spent a good 15 minutes trying to “break it”.  It didn’t, which impress me immensely. I managed to play some games on it along with 3 other internship candidates from some renowned colleges in the US (Michigan State, Ohio State, and Dartmouth…from what i remember). On this day in particular it seemed as I was the only Canadian University student.

After about 30 minutes of waiting I was greeted by my recruiter who seemed really interested in my future. She revealed that i would be interviewing with the Live Experience Team. This was no surprise to me as i expressed my great interest in the Live services side of Microsoft. I was however super excited as this opportunity got more exciting than before. She asked me what my plans are after finishing my undergrad program. Asked me if i was considering Grad school or joining the industry? I told her I was undecided, but I’m leaning more towards joining the industry and getting my feet wet. Grad school is not out of the question in the long run. It was a pleasant yet brief meet and greet.

Afterward i was set up with a “shuttle” which drove me to the Live building. The shuttles on campus are a mixture of Toyota Sienna and Prius. This one was a Prius. I was pleasantly surprised to see this, as they drive people around quite a bit and we could sure use a large company display their environmentally conscious side. Once arrived at the Live Building i saw the most hilarious nerdy thing of all day. Outside the front entrance there was a mailbox which was painted with the old Hotmail logo.

My interviews throughout the day were held with Senior Developers from the Live Sync Client team, SkyDrive team and the Live Social Team. We discussed Microsoft and how Live fits in to the big picture. From the start i could tell i was speaking to gifted individuals with tremendous experience. It was hard not to feel a little intimidated.

These are the questions that i was asked throughout the day:

You have a character array with the contents “the brown bear”. Reverse it. No stacks, no string manipulation.

What is the complexity of your algorithm and how can you improve on that?

You have another char [] with contents ” 5 3 3 15 2″. Output the repeating character.

How would you do it better?

What if you did know the character in the array? How would you do it?

Given a circular doubly linked list write out the methods to add a new node as such: addNode(Node itemToAdd, Node itemToAddBefore).

Write a method to remove the node.

Given a char[], find out if a given char[] is present. How many times does the char[] show up?

Can you do it more efficiently?

What extra curricular activities do you do? Strictly coding related.

How do you like Microsoft so far?

I might have missed a few questions as the interview was now almost a month ago. I’ve been working on this long post for just about that time as well. I’ve been incredibly busy and felt incredibly burdened as of lately to post this. I am sharing this with all the readers because posts like these helped me in my mental preparation for the interview.

I am sad to say that my interview with Microsoft was unsuccessful in getting the Internship. I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get as far and be considered as a potential candidate. In the prep call for the trip to Seattle, we were informed that 1000s apply for the Internships and only a select few ever get the chance to interview on the MS campus in Redmond. I will remember this statistic for year to come and use it as motivation to pursue excellence. This has not been an end to a dream. IT has merely been a validation of my commitment to one day join the elite group of innovators that I idolize. I will be reapplying to Microsoft in the Fall for a full-time position as i will be graduating in the Spring of 2010.

So what’s next for Filip Mares you say? Well lot’s actually. I have my 4th year Engineering Project starting in the fall of 2009. I have a few ideas kicking around and now it’s just a matter of narrowing down to one which a professor is willing to supervise. As to the ideas; many of them have yet to materialize beyond paper. I have been fortunate enough to have met a fellow peer who is as passionate about new technologies as I am. We will be announcing a project within the next few months. I am very excited about the possibilities and  hope to have more to say on the matter real soon.  :)

Here are a few breathtaking pictures from the Seattle-Redmond-Bellevue area.

-Filip