Chris Fohlin » Web Technologies

Sharing Your Resume with Box.net

cfohlin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:08:40 +0000

Previously I wrote about controlling your image on the web. Doing so is important, but even more so in times of unemployment. Controlling your web image includes purchasing your own domain and setting up a website in order to control the first search result for your name. Part of building that website includes making your resume available for download by employers.

Box.net is the best way, that I’ve found, to share your resume on the web. Box.net is a personal online file repository which provides access to your uploaded files any where you have web access. Box.net also allows users to share their documents with others.

Once you upload your resume (as a Word doc, PDF, etc), you can copy and paste the file’s unique URL (link) for sharing. Once you paste this link on the web, in an email, or in an instant message the recipient will be presented with the option to preview the document in their browser or download the file to their computer.

The file download is where the true usefulness of sharing your resume through Box.net comes in. Once someone downloads your resume, you’ll receive an email notification telling you so including the name of the file that was downloaded. Not only are you getting your resume out, but you know when it’s downloaded each and every time. It’s like real-time Google Analytics for your files complete with notifications.

Box.net is great for other purposes as well such as remote access to files, sending files to friends or co-workers, and collaborating on files with other Box.net users. I use Box.net for these purposes but love the download notification feature and its value in resume sharing the most.

What web application do you prefer for file sharing and more specifically resume sharing? Share in the comments below.

Google is Getting Impressive with Real-Time Search

cfohlin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:41:19 +0000

Google has gotten very good at real-time search. We all know that they said they were going to make the attempt, but until we see such claims in action it’s just talk. Google started by targeting important real-time sources such as Twitter and it looks like other content sources are right on par.

Google is crawling the web in general with an impressive, seemingly ever-increasing frequency. My last blog post was indexed about 2 or 3 minutes after it was published. My tweet pointing out my blog post was indexed another 2 or 3 minutes after that.

Some news may not actually break on Twitter first; it’s good to know that “static” web pages are still players in the real-time search game. The fact that new content on my irrelevant site is indexed so quickly is awesome.

Join the Community with Google Friend Connect!

cfohlin — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:51:22 +0000

Hello friends and newcomers!

I recently implemented Google Friend Connect here on the site. The most noticeable feature of this implemenation is the Google Friend Connect “Social Bar” along the bottom of the website. The Social Bar contains four features:

Sign in to the Social Bar using your credentials (Google, AIM, Yahoo, and more). Signing in will enable the commenting feature (#3).
View recent activity on the site.
View current comments regarding the page you’re viewing as well as add a comment regarding the page you’re currently viewing.
View the members that are a part of the community already; see who is already interacting!

Feel free to join the community and interact with other members by commenting on pages and blog entries. If you have a technical support question, feel free to post it as a comment on the Technical Support page and I will do my best to answer it as soon as possible.