Need PDUs to maintain your PMP certification?

There is one month left to get up to 12 PDUs for free through the IIL.

http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=1022&seid=374

Enjoy!

Gary Hoke, MBA, PMP

Great article comparing web conferencing options....

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/239419/business_videoconferencing_showdown_meet_facetoface.html

Gary Hoke

Have you Branch"ed"Out yet?

So what is the BranchOut app on Facebook? I'd describe it as the LinkedIn of Facebook. Many people try to separate their personal and professional networks. BranchOut spans both of these.

http://bit.ly/qAb7nV

It should be interesting to see if this app has longevity and begins to generate revenue streams similar to LinkedIn.

Gary Hoke

http://www.garyhoke.com

LinkedIn to Launch Job Application Tool

Lookout job boards! You are soon to be extinct! LinkedIn's got the network, got the money from their IPO and will now proceed to put hooks into everything else.

http://gigaom.com/2011/06/01/apply-with-linkedin/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29

If they bring on some additionally functionality like this their market cap might actually become justifiable.

Gary Hoke

German scientists beat data transfer record - 26 Tb/sec!!!


This seems fairly newsworthy. Maybe we'll be bouncing lasers off satellites for WAN connections in the near future?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110523/tc_afp/germanysciencetelecomdata

Gary Hoke

Is a storm brewing for cloud computing???

Outage of Amazon Web Services won't help adoption, but will hopeful drive some changes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110422/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_amazon_outages

Gary Hoke

Dice Tech Salary Survey for 2010-2011 is out...

http://salary.dice.com/Documents/Dice_2010_11_TechSalarySurvey.pdf

Some surprise results with regards to salary drop for some roles and skills.

Gary Hoke

Here's a great use of RFID to prevent theft. As RFID costs continue to fall things like this will only become more prevalent.

"That hotel towel you're stealing might have an RFID chip in it"

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/20/that-hotel-towel-youre-stealing-might-have-an-rfid-chip-in-it/

Maybe they'll start putting it on the shampoo bottles and in the bars of soap as well?

Gary Hoke

Lots of patches out recently from Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Adobe.

Read more about them here: http://www.informationweek.com/articles/229401762

Don't become a victim to these vulnerabilities! Install your patches today.

Gary Hoke

Freebie after Rebate: McAfee Internet Security 2011 - 1 User @ Newegg

Gary Hoke

I just ordered "The Real Business of IT" this past weekend and I'm looking forward to reading it. I heard lots of positive feedback and it appears to have numerous positive reviews.

http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/media_products/REAL_IT/home.jsp

If you would like a preview Chapter 1 and Chapter 5 are available online. I'll post a review once I'm finished.

Gary Hoke

So what if you could take a pill and it could report back to your doctor when you took it, what was your heart rate, body temperature or other physiological information? Well that day is here (or at least really close). Proteus Biomedical has developed ingestible sensor technology that does just that.

http://www.proteusbiomed.com/proteus_technology.html

Imagine if you got a text message reminding you to take your medication, but only if you forgot to take it. This technology has the promise to significantly increase drug adherence thereby allow physicians to better determine if a drug was not effective as a result of poor drug adherence versus efficacy. This could be especially of interest in clinical trials when the assessment of efficacy is most critical.

Gary Hoke

Congrats to all you software engineers out there! Best job in America for 2011 per CNBC.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40950977?slide=11

1. Software Engineer

Average Salary: $87,140
Scored High On: Hiring Outlook, Salary, Work Environment

If you had any doubt that technology was king, this No. 1 ranking should erase it. Software engineers, those who research, design and maintain software systems, are in great demand as mobile technology and computer networking grows. Plus, the need to secure and update those systems gives an added spike to demand.

Employment of computer software engineers is expected to jump more than 30 percent in the next decade, according to the Labor Department.

The pay is highest at scientific-research, computer-equipment manufacturing and software-publishing companies.

Gary Hoke

So I'm thinking about buying a Apple iPad to run Microsoft Windows on. No really. So if you had to choose would you go with a Windows Tablet or an iPad with VM access to the Windows client in a business environment? Please share your thoughts!

The article below discusses how the newly released VMware View™ Client for iPad is being planned for use in the healthcare industry.

http://emrdailynews.com/2011/03/09/apple-ipad-means-business-for-healthcare-with-vmware-view%E2%84%A2-virtual-desktops/

Gary Hoke

Investors: Get your free subscription to Kiplinger's magazine here.

http://www.freebizmag.com/emailkipfinnl01welcome.htm

Gary Hoke

So have you signed up for the Amazon Cloud Drive yet? Amazon's offering is pretty nice. You get 5 GB for free and can purchase more space. You can upload up to a 2 GB file, which way exceeds the 50 MB limit allowed by Microsoft Skydrive. Give a try, it's free.

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore

Gary Hoke

Looking for ITIL v3 Foundation Certification on a showstring budget?

I recently found this offering by ThoughtRock for ITIL study materials and the exam through Loyalist for only $150. It sounds quite compelling, but I'd be interested in feedback from anyone who has purchased it. Thanks in advance for your feedback!

http://www.thoughtrock.net/theitilexam/

Gary Hoke

I recently had an opportunity to see a demo of Microsoft PowerPivot. I was quite impressed by this tool, especially given that it is a free add-in to Excel 2010. There are numerous competing technologies out there that provide in-memory business intelligence capabilities, but I think this could be a game changer for Microsoft. Specifically, many business users already rely on using Excel to perform data analysis activities, yet usually in a manner whereby the datasets are disconnected from the source of record. PowerPivot pulls a snapshot of the data locally, but can update this snapshot periodically such that models, graphs, calculations, dashboards, etc. can be dynamically updated over time and support analysis of very large datasets without placing persistent load on a production database server. The other compelling offering is the same technology for SharePoint allow for the ability to distribute the analysis in a dashboard format to other users in your organization.

To learn more about Microsoft PowerPivot visit http://www.powerpivot.com

If you are already on Office 2010 it is a free add-in, so give it try.

Gary Hoke