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Average salaries for Technology Professionals increased by 5.2% in 2006 based on Dice.com salary survery.

ERP and Sarbanes-Oxley Top List of Highest Paying Skills and Experience

Gender Gap Narrows Slightly in 2006

Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, announced the results of its 2006 Annual Salary Survey. The survey of more than 19,000 technology professionals found that IT salaries in the U.S. increased 5.2 percent to $73,308 in 2006 from $69,700 in 2005. The complete survey results illustrate key industry trends, including the continued tightening of the technology job market.

• The high value of experience in specialized areas such as ERP, Sarbanes-Oxley and CRM
• A rise in entry level salaries as companies increase their efforts to recruit new workers to the field to fulfill the growing talent gap
• A continuing gender gap as women in technology earned an average of 9.7 percent less than men

The overall increase in technology salaries can be traced back to the continued improvement in the technology job market. Strong demand for technology professionals to fulfill available jobs is driving many companies to use higher salaries to attract and retain technology professionals. The survey found that starting salaries outpaced the overall national average, with an increase of 13.1 percent to $42,414 in 2006. Those with one to two years of technology experience also saw strong gains, with a 13.8 percent increase to $46,935.

Check out the results of the Dice Tech Salary Survey 2006

Grab a copy of Diskeeper’s whitepaper on Reducing Downtime and Reactive Maintenance: The ROI of Defragmenting the Windows Enterprise.

This white paper covers the performance and potential reliability implications of file fragmentation as well as its associated costs and investigates defragmentation as a solution to unnecessary or premature hardware upgrades.

Google is pulling the plug on Google Answers, a service that allows people to submit questions over the Internet that researchers answer for a fee. The search giant didn’t say why it was closing the service, which launched about four years ago and was one of Google’s first non-search projects. Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of SearchEngineWatch.com, said the service never achieved the popularity of Yahoo’s rival offering, Yahoo Answers.

Google will stop accepting new questions for the service later this week, it said in its official blog late Tuesday. It will accept new answers to questions until the end of the year, and it will maintain the archive of questions and answers online for browsing. “Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time — and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product,” the company said.

Mozilla is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Firefox 2, a major update of the Firefox browser. The product is now available for download from www.getfirefox.com for Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems in 35+ languages.

Mozilla strongly recommends that all users upgrade to this latest release.

What’s New in Firefox 2 Visual Refresh:
Firefox 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability without altering the familiarity of the browsing experience.
Built-in phishing protection:
Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page. Phishing Protection is turned on by default, and works by checking sites against either a local or online list of known phishing sites. This list is automatically downloaded and regularly updated when the Phishing Protection feature is enabled.

Enhanced search capabilities:
Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines. A new search engine manager makes it easier to add, remove and re-order search engines, and users will be alerted when Firefox encounters a website that offers new search engines that the user may wish to install.

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I was driving along Ayala Ave one Friday afternoon when I got a call from a friend whom I haven’t been in touch with for quite some time. He was asked if it would be possible to disable file sharing via GPO (Group Policy Objects). FYI, there is no specific option in group policy related to removing file sharing. But still,  I answered yes right of the bat since I asked myself that same question a few years back when I had a project that needed to disable the file sharing feature on some users only.

I remembered that the solution had to mess with some registry entries so I wasn’t able to immediately give him a quick how-to guide on how to go about it. I asked him to send me an email so that I’ll be reminded about it. Well you know weekends… you tend to do some other non-work related stuff so I totally forgot about his request.

Then came Monday when I checked my mail. Saw his email so I dug up my notes from previous projects on how I implemented the workaround.

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Following Microsoft’s recent initiative in releasing SQL Server 2005 Express, a free version of their SQL Server 2005 Server Family, Oracle also releases their first free version which they call Oracle 10g XE short for Express Edition. Just like Micorosoft SQL Server Express, Oracle’s 10g XE is free to develop, free to deploy and free to distribute.

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 code base. It is a great fit for developers working on PHP, Java, .NET, database, html, and open-source applications.

With Oracle Database XE, you can:

• Gain practical, resume-building experience working with the world’s number one database
• Get easy access to the Oracle Database on your machine for course work
• Share your work with your colleagues, instructors, and classmates

Once you have installed Oracle Database XE, learn the latest tips, tricks, and techniques by registering for the free Oracle Database XE Discussion Forum, hosted by Oracle Database master Tom Kyte.

Grab a copy of Oracle 10g XE

Gutom ka na ba? Along Ayala Ave. Makati ka ba? Order na sa HCC Delivers!

HCC offers you two choices of menu at the same cost - KAHIT ANO, 45 Pesos lang!!! HCC offers a wide array of lunchbox meals and tapsi meals to choose from. On a daily basis, our lunchbox meals changes so you better watch out for regular updates on HCC Delivers! For the tapsi meals, they are available all day, everyday… again, KAHIT ANO, 45 Pesos lang!

In order to maintain the quality of freshness of the food they deliver to your offices, they currently have a cut off for placing your orders. For lunch orders to be delivered between 11AM to 1PM, they will accept orders only up to 8PM on the previous day. For dinner and midnight meals, they will only accept orders up to 12NN on the same day.

Call HCC Delivers! at 8243649 or email them at .

Microsoft Asia Pacific Security Conference

Security is a top priority for you and a top priority for Microsoft. Join us at the 2006 Asia Security Roadshow to learn about key trends in the Security Industry, discover how to best prepare for advances in security technologies and find out what Microsoft is doing to help our customers address risk while still taking advantage of the connected world.

The conference will contain sessions specific to either infrastructure or developer audiences. Registration is open.

Date:
3/28/2006

Time:
8:30am - 5:00pm

Venue:
Rizal Ballroom, The Shangri-La Makati

Speakers:
Jojo Ayson (Senior Product Manager for Platform Security)
Jacqueline Peterson-Jarvis Senior Manager (Security Mobilization Initiative, Microsoft Asia)
Ritchie Lozada (Principal Consultant)
Steve Riley (Senior Program Manager Microsoft Corporation Security Unit)
Mathew Hardman (Asia Pacific ISV Developer Evangelist)
Ed Quek (Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Asia)

Check out http://www.msevents.ph for more info on the Microsoft Asia Pacific Security Conference.

Adobe Online Survey 2006

Welcome to the Adobe Online Survey. We value your relationship, and your opinion is important to us. We would appreciate very much you spending the next ten minutes in giving us your feedback about Adobe products and services.

As a token of our appreciation, a pair of movie tickets* will be given for each completed survey.

All completed survey will be entered into a lucky draw and you stand a chance to win an iPod* (30GB) worth USD299!

The survey will be valid till March 15, 2006

Check out Adobe Online Survey 2006

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) helps you find virtually anything on your PC or your networked drives including e-mail messages, calendar appointments, documents, and more. Searching your computer is now as fast and easy as searching the Web. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
 

Grab a copy of Windows Desktop Search 2.6.5 beta

Check out the KB Article on WDS 2.6.5 Beta

OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 is available today. It is ready now in English; check with the Native Language projects for other languages. The release is recommended for everyone. It contains some nifty new features, fixes many small bugs and resolves numerous issues. For instance, spellcheck dictionaries are now directly integrated into OpenOffice.org and are immediately available after installation; there is no need for extra downloads. The community have also added import filters for Quattro Pro 6 and Microsoft Word 2. As well, other import filters have been improved, so that documents created by other applications can be edited in OpenOffice.org more seamlessly. Continuing with the the push to enhance OpenOffice.org’s business functionality, it is now easier to use mail merge. As well, integration with the KDE address book is now possible.

The appearance of the application has also been enhanced, and for Linux users, there are new icon sets for KDE and GNOME. The result of this and the other improvements is not just a prettier OpenOffice.org but a friendlier and more capable suite.

Grab a copy of OpenOffice 2.0.2

The Philippine Linux Users’ Group is inviting everyone to attend the PLUG 2nd Quarter Free Seminar series scheduled on the 8th of April 2006 at Asia Pacific College, Makati City, from 9AM to 5PM.

The Microsoft Club invites its members to an exclusive Technopreneur Seminar on Saturday, March 25, 2006 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM at the Office & Exchange Rooms of Microsoft Philippines’ new office at the 16th Floor, 6750 Ayala Ave, Makati City.

To duke it out, to take into consideration factors that would affect the very future that you wish to build and go into business in your own is a very difficult thing to do. Rewards would be great albeit the complications, decisions could either make or break you. What does one have to do, what does one have to be in order to be a Technopreneur?

PROGRAM:

9:00 - 9:45

  Registration

9:45 - 10:00

  Opening Remarks - Jojo Ayson

10:00 - 11:00

  Wilson Chua Key note - Inspirational

  PART 1: Business Strategies

  Learn how to position your business for long-term growth (more…)

Microsoft Philippines invites MSDN Connection members to an exclusive event: A Look Into Windows Vista

Be amongst the first to learn about the new operating system and the significant innovations in the developer platform.

Fiddling Around with Windows Vista
This session will explore dozens of enhancements and new features in Windows Vista that benefit IT professionals, users, and companies. Major categories of improvements include security, reliability, performance, deployability, and manageability.  Furthermore, Windows Vista is a substantial advance in Windows, with significant innovations in the developer platform. Windows Vista makes it easier than ever before to build applications that are more secure, reliable, and manageable.  Be amongst the first to get a preview into these new technologies. Featuring Build 5308.

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Yes, I know the Canon Powershot S3 IS is already out… but it won’t hit the shops up ’til May this year and besides this is already a great deal for 300 green bucks! (Roughly around 15K in Pesos)

So if you are in the US or know somebody who is in the US and you want to take advantage of this offer check out the details over @ slickdeals.

Canon S2 IS for only US$304.25 + Tax!