| More top picks from the week: TomTom caves, will pay Microsoft license fees; may force more open source patents Microsoft founder's cable company goes Chapter 11; establishes millions in exec bonuses Microsoft becomes Twitter's first big-time advertiser Rogue SharePoint sites pose security menace From our bloggers: Mitchell Ashley: Converging on Microsoft
IBM Steps On American Workers - Future IT Managers Replace IBM
That great sucking sound isn't NAFDA, it's IBM (and their empty headed executives) thumbing their nose at 5k of IBM's productive, loyal North American workers, while IBM sucks their jobs right from under them and the American economy. Layoffs are layoffs, most companies have been forced to take some type of action, either out of necessity or by riding the curve and trimming during the recession. Even Microsoft was forced to make a 5k layoff move, but at least Microsoft was hiring another 2-3k positions at the same time. But IBM's move says much more about IBM's declining commitment to the American market and its workers. Brian Egler: SQL Server Strategies
Business Intelligence load balancing? Have your check book ready…
As I outlined in a previous blog entry, Microsoft has produced a huge 16GB VPC Image that has the entire Business Intelligence development stack installed on a single virtual machine. While this works, it is clearly not a good idea to load all this software onto a single server. But how should you scale out this solution in production? Well, it depends… Ron Barrett: A Better Windows World
MailArchiva: Open Source Email Archiving for Exchange
I thought I would finish the week talking about more email tools. I found a cool open source solution for email archiving call MailArchiva. MailArchiva is a great solution to help you to deal with email archiving in your organization as well as helping you to make sure you are in compliance if this is important to your organization. Tyson Kopczynski: Hidden Microsoft
When a computer science degree matters, and when it doesn't
A very good question is posed in this article: Top 10 technology skills Why yes... it all depends. How about that for an answer? Given, I could have also answered the question with another question. For example, "What necessity are you referring to?" or "What would the person be doing?" and so on. I guess the point that I'm trying to drive home with my non-answers. Kerrie Meyler: Managing Microsoft
Job hunting: What kind of college degree do you need?
As IT professionals, sooner or later we decide to look for another job (hopefully voluntarily). And even if you're not looking for a job at the moment, it's always a good idea to have your resume current ... you'll never know when you'll need it. Glenn Weadock: Windows Server 2008
Of Quotas and Epoxy
I have a shower door handle that doesn’t want to stay connected to the shower door. I’ve tried two different kinds of epoxy, and if you look at the handle, you can see remnants of both kinds. I probably should have been diligent enough to remove all traces of the first glue before applying the second, but I didn’t think it would matter. It did. Randy Muller: All About Microsoft Certifications
Should an IT Pro have a college degree?
So, do IT personnel need a college degree? That is the subject of an article in Network World: Does a Computer Science degree matter anymore? I don't think there is a definitive yes or no answer for this question. I believe that in some areas of the IT field, yes, a degree is required or at the very least should be strongly encouraged. A programmer, for instance, should have a prescribed course of instruction. Do Network Administrators require the same level of formal instruction as a programmer, or for that matter, does a Database Administrator? The Database Administrator probably should have some formal education. As to the Network Administrator, this is one IT position that probably does not require a college degree for normal day-to-day operations. Hot discussions among Microsoft Subnet readers SHAREBUILDER WEBSITE IS DOWN AGAIN!!! - ING DIRECT CUSTOMERS OUTRAGED OVER POTENTIALLY LOSING MILLIONS FROM THEIR ACCOUNTS IBM Steps On American Workers - Future IT Managers Replace IBM A Better Windows World tools library SharePoint and the Three Bears: Getting Your Deployment Just Right Xobni: Give your Outlook the power it deserves! Multi-Gig File Transfers Giveaways: One lucky reader will win a Microsoft training course from New Horizons worth up to $2,500. Deadline March 31. See the Microsoft Subnet home page for entry details. Check out Microsoft Subnet’s library for free chapters. | 
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