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Monday, July 31, 2006

 

Office 2007 Beta 2

Just installed MS Office 2007 Beta 2 to see how it flies, and see that they’ve included a lot of what people are currently doing on the web with other applications: Blog support in Word and RSS feeds in Outlook, optionally sync’d with your IE7 feeds. Nifty.

Take it for a spin: Register & download.


Wednesday, July 26, 2006

 

Fruity: Blackberry sync w/ a Mac

Kinda strange for it to be so rare, but the Blackberry is primarily a business device and Macs are still seen as primarily home machines in most environments.  Still, if you're looking for such a thing, then look here.


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Skilled-worker shortage: fact or fiction? - Network World

Skilled-worker shortage: fact or fiction? - Network World

For several years we've been reading news stories about the impending shortage of skilled IT workers. The predictions have been fairly dire: As baby boomers retire and fewer young people join the IT workforce, hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs will go unfilled.

IT projects will languish because companies can't find the workers with the right skills to staff them. We'll need more imported workers coming in to this country under H1-B visas, and we'll have to send more work overseas to outsource agencies.

Baloney!

Go check out her article: She's right on the money.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

 

Seems you didn't need that Slim Jim or National Enquirer after all | NetworkWorld.com Community

Seems you didn't need that Slim Jim or National Enquirer after all | NetworkWorld.com Community

Huh-huh: "You nice folks are too busy for impulse shopping, so just move along, now... nothing to see here, just check out through this here new-fangled machine, okey-doke?"

Thursday, July 20, 2006

 

Computerworld: Companies Want Network Engineers w/ Other Skills, Too

// Now playing: Klaus Badelt - Moonlight Serenade //

Five tips to getting the best networking team

The hiring floodgates are open, experts say, and networking positions are among the hardest to fill. Here's the inside scoop on how to snag the best people.

[...] Recruiting and hiring experts warn not to focus on skills alone. "Hiring is no longer task-oriented, it's looking for the best overall athlete," says Bill Gilbert, country leader for the U.S. at Futurestep, a recruiting subsidiary of Korn/Ferry International. "You want people that can come in and do a certain job, but that can also move around in the organization." He says this differs from previous years where hiring focused on specific technical skills such as Java development.



[via Computerworld Careers News]

 

This is good news for me, as I am PLAINLY the overall athlete -type!  ;-)

Friday, July 14, 2006

 

Bourdain in Beirut

// Now playing: Klaus Badelt - Skull and Crossbones //



Bourdain in Beirut



According to the NY Post, world traveler and cult chef icon Anthony Bourdain is stranded in war-ravaged Beirut yesterday after Israeli forces bombed the city's international airport and blockaded all of Lebanon's ports. Mr. Bourdain states:



"Our network, our friends and our families just want us out of here as soon as possible," Bourdain told Page Six yesterday afternoon, as Israeli shells exploded in the distance. "We're not getting a show out of this . . . I just wanna hang out and drink at the bar. The mojitos here are great.


I'm not sure, but I think somehow, somewhere, Papa is smiling.


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[via Accidental Hedonist]

 

 

Thursday, July 13, 2006

 

Study: IT job cuts in Q2 down 26%; lowest level since 2000


// Now playing: Stephanie Schneiderman Band - You're the One (SS) //

Study: IT job cuts in Q2 down 26%; lowest level since 2000

The good news that IT sector job cuts are falling is tempered by higher fuel prices that could reverse that trend soon, according to new study from outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.



[via Computerworld Careers News]

 

HM!  THAT sounds like good news for those of us in IT!

Friday, July 07, 2006

 

YouTube - sunday bloody sunday rx2008

I can only imagine how much time this took to edit together, but you've got to go and see it: Dubya "singing" U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

OMG.


Thursday, July 06, 2006

 

Kinda Just What I Needed

As you may know, the holding company I work for recently sold its 2 held companies, so most of my IT job went elsewhere, one way or another.  I have been busting my ass for the last 5 years here, and rarely do I get any thanks or recognition from the users for whom I try so hard.  It's the curse endemic to this type of job:  When things are going well and you're kicking ass on everything, most of the time that means that nobody notices... by designBy design, my work troubleshooting, problem solving, and general intervention on behalf of "my people" should not interrupt their work.  Unfortunately, it is too easy not to perform the necessary self-marketing and let people know what I do for them.  I'm a humble fellow, of course, I'm not a braggart, I don't whine much, it's just not something that comes naturally to me.  But in IT, where my problem-solving accomplishments are, by design, invisible, self-promotion is a necessary part of the job.  It's necessary for a host of reasons, but the one I'm writing about today is because if you don't do that self-promotion, then people don't realize how much you've done for them and often assume the opposite:  They'll assume that you're doing nothing for them instead of everything.

So, many of my cow-orkers have gone to one or other of the companies we've sold.  Yesterday, I got a call from one of them thanking me.  "Charlie, we didn't realize how much you did for us!"  We're nearing the end of our transition period, and I am still getting calls from my old CFO on issues that he should have gone to either his internal helpdesk or his own internal IT guy.  But he's still calling me.  He doesn't call me because he's a nice guy and likes hanging around with other nice guys, he's not and he doesn't, he's calling because I'm still more responsive to his issues than the new parent-company's IT department, the parent-company's help desk, and his own IT guy.

This has been a hard job, and I'm not sad to see it going away, very soon.  (The paycheck's departure could crimp my style, this much is true!)  But, for as many conflicts as one has over 5 years of working in a company where 90% of my interractions with folks is across 3 or 4 time zones and the miscommunication and simple disconnects as that creates, at least I can leave here with a "Thank You" that means something and the reminder that trying harder really did produce valuable results for people... much as they didn't notice it at the time!

No, that's not much, is it?  But, it's what I can hang my hat on, so I will keep it.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

 

Lesson

Just in case you needed the information, dental floss doesn't make A good toy for a 2-yr-old. 


-Charlie


 

On Starting long projects

The great French Marshall Lyautey
once asked his gardener to plant a tree.
The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing
and would not reach maturity for 100 years.
The Marshall replied, 'In that case,
there is no time to lose.
Plant it this afternoon!'
-- John F. Kennedy --



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