03.12.08

10 Most Wanted IT Skills

Posted in Information Systems/Technology at 5:28 pm by Paul Ambrose

A recent article in eWeeklisted security, networking, and operating systems as important skills that US employers are looking for in IT professionals. Here’s a list of top 10 IT skills as reported by eWeek.

  1. Security/Firewall/Data Privacy
  2. General Networking/Network Infrastructure
  3. Operating System
  4. Hardware
  5. Non-specific Server Technology (database, storage, maintenance, and administration)
  6. Soft Skills (customer service, sales, project management, and communication)
  7. Application-Level (architecture, design, development, programming, and integration)
  8. Specific Programming Languages
  9. Web-Based Technologies (Web 2.0, service-oriented architecture, software as a service, rich Internet application, and AJAX)
  10. RF Mobile/Wireless

02.27.08

IT Trends Over the Next 5 Years

Posted in Information Systems/Technology at 12:42 am by Paul Ambrose

  1. Mac will double its market share
  2. Half of business travelers won’t take their laptops
  3. Open source will penetrate 80% of enterprise software
  4. A third of all software purchased will be by subscription
  5. Many new businesses will buy IT infrastructure as a service
  6. Power efficiency will become a key criteria in IT purchases
  7. CO2 footprint will become part of PC purchasing criteria
  8. Green sourcing will drive vendors to provide green credentials
  9. End user preferences will drive half of all IT purchases
  10. 3D printers will grow 100-fold

Gartner released the above list on January 31, and it stated, “The full impact of these trends may not appear this year, but executives need to act now so that they can exploit the trends for their competitive advantage.” Here’s the link to the Gartner article.

02.23.08

Top 10 Commonly Used Passwords

Posted in Information Systems/Technology at 6:59 pm by Paul Ambrose

  • #10. [your first name]
  • #9. blink182
  • #8. password1
  • #7. myspace1
  • #6. monkey
  • #5. letmein
  • #4. abc123
  • #3. qwerty
  • #2. 123456
  • #1. password

Source: PC Magazine

02.08.08

Hot IT acronyms for 2008!

Posted in Information Systems/Technology at 11:53 am by Paul Ambrose

Jason Hiner, Executive Editor of Tech Republic shared this on his blog recently (listed in descending order of ‘hotness’):

7. BPM

Business Process Management: Refers to streamlining business operations as a cost savings measure by using technology to make business processes more efficient.

6. CMDB

A Configuration Management Database: A unified database that captures configuration data about the various IT infrastructure elements for standardizing IT management.

5. BI

Business Intelligence: Fancy high-powered reports and exotic dashboards used to track business performance.

4. MDM

Master Data Management: Similar to, but even bigger than a data warehouse with the key difference being that this ginourmous database unifies live and dynamic data, such as customer and product data.

3. TCO

Total cost of ownership: This is an useful formula for arriving at the full costs involved in deploying and managing technology tools and in conjunction with ROI is useful in helping IT departments decide how to best spend their constrained budgets.

2. SOA

Service Oriented Architecture: Computing refered to as “Web services” and “Software as a Service” over the past decade has now evolved into SOA, which goes a step beyond by breaking down software services into standard building blocks that can be re-used, distributed, and fed into other sites, programs, and projects.

1. ITIL

Information Technology Infrastructure Library: A repository or library of a set of standards and best practices for organizing and running an IT department.

Here’s the link to Jason Hiner’s original post.

01.03.08

Questions that Employes CANNOT ask during a job interview

Posted in General at 9:34 pm by Paul Ambrose

Did you know that it is illegal for employers to ask certain questions during a job interview? I often find that students are unaware that employers cannot ask certain questions during a job interview. Susan Thornberry of Tech Republic identifies 10 questions, or area where employers cannot dig into during an interview. Here’s a summary of Susan’s article:

  • Where were you born?
    Employers cannot discriminate based on a candidate’s national origin.  However you can ask whether a candidate is authorized to work in the United States.
  • What is your native language?
    Again, this question could be used to determine national origin. But you can ask whether the person knows a language if it is required for the job.
  • Are you married?
    You can’t discriminate on the basis of marital status, and hence this question is off limits.
  • Do you have children?
    This is covered by a general prohibition about discrimination over parental status.
  • Do you plan to get pregnant?
    Employers ask this question to weed out women who might take a maternity leave. It has always been rude coming from a casual acquaintance, and now it’s illegal as well.
  • How old are you?
    Age discrimination is illegal.
  • Do you observe Yom Kippur?
    You can’t discriminate on the basis of religion.
  • Do you have a disability or chronic illness?
    This information is not supposed to be used as a factor in hiring. If the job will require some specific physical tasks, you may ask whether the person could perform those tasks with reasonable accommodation.
  • Are you in the National Guard?
    It’s illegal to discriminate against someone because he or she belongs to the National Guard or a reserve unit.
  • Do you smoke or use alcohol?
    You can’t discriminate on the basis of the use of a legal product when the employee is not on the premises and not on the job.

Here’s the link to Susan Thornberry’s full article.

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