| Vol VIII, Issue 8: August 2010 |
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-- SPONSORED BY --
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Letter from the Editor |
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The inexorable movement to The Cloud is also inevitable. The economic benefits are too great for business managers to ignore. The cloud is this generations Information Superhighway, and it's just as much the Wild Wild West as the Interwebs was back in the 1990's.
Of course we also know that the entire discussion about The Cloud is really more old news in a new language than something new and exciting. Software as a Service, apps on the internet, yada yada...much of this discussion has been raging for a long time. That someone put a name to it is more an indication of how big it has become...or how bored we are with the current state of affairs in IT. Check out A.J. Axline's column this month for enlightenment. He always manages to provoke thought while trying to suppress a chuckle.
Security issues have also been around for as long as we've had computer networks. The more companies put the squeeze on costs, the more security is likely to suffer. While the industry as a whole will say otherwise, working in IT for a couple decades makes me somewhat immune to the promises of increased security and better practices and methodology. Criminals have a huge motivation to breach any security measure and like any attempt at forstalling said criminal intent, security professionals spend more time chasing the bad guys and patching the holes after the fact than they do in catching them before hand.
All this means is that there is ample opportunity to make some career moves at a time when careers are tough to maintain. There is however a caveat. It no longer pays to "just" be an IT professional. Companies seemingly want you to specialize in IT but be a Jack of all Business Units otherwise.
On a lighter note, Microsoft is upping the ante with new Second Shot deals when you buy exam vouchers. Called Exam Packs, they get progressively cheaper and each voucher includes a free Second Shot. Microsoft is offering free Second Shots when you buy two or more exams at a time. If you only want to buy a single exam they'll sell you a Second Shot for an extra 15%. If you are actively studying and certifying your skills, any time you can save money it's good.
Microsoft Certification Exam Packs include:
- Buy 2-exam pack, get 15 percent off and Second Shots on every exam in pack
- Buy 3-exam pack, get 15 percent off and Second Shots on every exam in pack
- Buy 4-exam pack, get 20 percent off and Second Shots on every exam in pack
- Buy 5-exam pack, get 20 percent off and Second Shots on every exam in pack
Ben Ice, Editor
The Cert Times
Send all comments to: CTEditor@ExamForce.com
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This Month's Puzzle |
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It's funny as I look back at some of the brainteasers, quiz's and questions I've floated by you through the years. The most complex seem to be a mere trifle to your intelligence, but something simple like last month can throw you (at least some of you.)
Last month's quiz - There are only two T's in Timothy Tuttle. True or False?
More than I'd care to count answered 5. If simply counting the number of t's, that would be correct. Others tried to hedge their bets with two answers. "If you mean T's, two. If you meant all t's, then five. My stance there is pretty simple. There is only one answer, not two. Of course last month the question asked for a True or False answer, therefore if you answered anything but True or False, you are out of the equation.
Having said that, there were still a fair number of you that answered as I asked it. Five of you are winna's and have an email waiting for you. Please go to ExamForce, select any Practice Exam title and give me your shipping information and phone number and I'll get it out to you.
This month's winna's are: Steven Bulls, Danny Fabris, Alfred Nims, Luke Worrall and Mark Maxwell. To the person who signed off as albin albin...I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by not responding to you. I get thousands of emails a month. Some of them aren't even spam. I do try and read them all. But if you aren't picked as a winner or don't have something clever to say, I rarely write back. I'm sure you understand...
THIS MONTH'S QUIZ
There is one sport in where neither the fans nor athletes know the score until the contest is over. What is the sport?
Remember, respond and make sure the word QUIZ (does not have to be all-caps) is in the subject line or risk your answer missing my inbox
Ben Ice
Editor-The Cert Times
Send all entries to: CTEditor@ExamForce.com
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Dive into the high-paying network security field with this special offer on Cisco's CCNA 640-553 Implementing IOS Network Security training from ExamForce. Priced at $285 on our website, I've gone to bat for you with the big boss and knocked it down to a mere figment of that price, only $139.95.
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A.J. Axline's B1N@RY N@T10N |
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The Death of The Death of Death (?)
Every few months, the mainstream tech press pundits recycle one of several "The Death Of...?" articles they keep in the back of the journalistic freezer until one of these articles seems topical enough to re-heat and scoop out onto the page. For example, the recent upswing in the sale of ebook readers prompted yet another round of "The Death of Paper Books?" stories, an annoyingly popular media meme that I remember being slopped to the trolls back in the 1990s.
(Hey, tech news hack: ebooks are fun and fine, but as long as there is a single acre of virgin old-growth forest left on the planet, there will be bound paper books. They are a drug, and people are addicted. Get over yourself. If you come up dry in the weekly topic well, run some LOLcat pictures.)
I saw the latest example of premature eulogizing in a recent article proclaiming "The Death of the PC". According to the article's Nostradanus (sic), personal computers are on the cusp of extinction because we're all about to replace them with mobile devices.
Read The Full Column
Send all comments to: CTEditor@ExamForce.com
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