Stories by Paul Heltzel

  • Attention, rockstar developers: Get a talent agent

    You've heard the timeworn advice: Leverage LinkedIn, post code to GitHub, bone up on the latest buzzy tech. But a little-known career trick is giving some of today's top developers an edge: Hire an agent to find work for you.

  • How to salvage a (nearly) hopeless software project

    Like a carpenter called in to salvage a home repair gone wrong, developers who've been around the block are used to seeing a handful of the same problems. The code gets creaky; bug reports file at an ever-increasing clip; the time spent maintaining the project surpasses any ability to add features to it. At a certain point, the question arises: Can you rehab the code, or should you scrap it and rebuild from the ground up?

  • Net vendor drives down PC prices

    Aiming squarely at bargain-hunting students and small businesses, US based Internet-only vendor iDot.com recently announced a $US699 PC based on a 300MHz K6-2 processor. That price includes a well-rounded feature set: 32MB of SDRAM, a 4.3GB hard drive, and a 4MB AGP Matrox G100 graphics card. Also included are a 32x (maximum) CD-ROM drive. But the price does not include a monitor, sound card, or modem.

  • Microsoft Takes on Web Graphics

    Microsoft is currently showing a Windows 98 add-on code-named Chrome that sends high-end multimedia content through the Web to users with fast PCs.