Alexander’s Blog

Certification Magazine published it’s 2009 salary survey this month and the results are very encouraging for the IT professionals. Here are some of the highlights.

- This year’s Certification Magazine’s Salary Survey received more than 40,000 responses from IT professionals in over 150 countries around the world.

- In 2009, the average U.S. total salary, including benefits and incentives, was a generous $96,677. That is a 9 percent gain over last year’s average of $88,640.

- 30% respondents said they they got a raise between 10 and 20 percent.

- Most respondents (52%) said the raise was 5% or less this year, compared to last year when the raise was 5%-10%.

- The total number of people who earned at least one certification this year was more than 67%.

- A full 96 percent of respondents from the top five countries with the highest salaries said they were certified.

- The cert that commanded the highest salary this year was the Brocade Certified Network Engineer (BCNE, formerly FNCNE) with a whopping average total salary of $146,250.

- The cert that connoted the lowest salary was the CIW (Certified Internet Web Professional), with an average salary of $59,290. This was followed by the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) with $62,030.

- 90 percent of respondents were men.

- The largest number of responses (27 percent) came from the 25 to 29 age group, followed by the 30 to 34 demographic (roughly 21 percent).

- Approximately 42 percent of respondents have a bachelor’s degree, and 22 percent have a master’s degree. Nearly 12 percent have received technical training but no degree, and nearly 10 percent have just a high school diploma.

These are only the highlights. If you are in the IT industry, you definitely want to read the rest of the survey here.

According to reports, some Microsoft Windows computers are experiencing a “Black Screen of Death.” The phrase Black Screen of Death came out of the famous “Blue Screen of Death”, which caused system crash on earlier Windows operating systems. According to MSNBC:

The problem may be tied to security updates recently released by the software maker. “Microsoft is investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers,” the company said in a statement. “Once we complete our investigation, we will provide detailed guidance on how to prevent or address these issues.”

British security firm Prevx writes about the problem on its blog, and suggests following this procedure:

1. Restart your PC
2. Log on and wait for the black screen to appear
3. Make sure your PC should be able to connect to the Internet (black screen does not appear to affect this)
4. Press the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys simultaneously
5. When prompted, Click Start Task Manager
6. In Task Manager Click on the Application Tab
7. Next Click New Task
8. Now enter the command:
“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX”
9.  Click OK and your (Web) browser should start up and begin the download process
10.  When prompted for the download Click run, the black screen fix program will download and run to automatically fix the issue.
11.  Now restart your PC and the black screen problem will hopefully be gone.

“There appears to be many causes of the black screen issue,” wrote Dave Kennerley of Prevx Support on the company’s blog. “The symptoms are very distinctive and troublesome. After starting your Windows 7, Vista, XP, NT, W2K, W2K3 or W2K8 PC or server the system appears normal.

“However, after logging on there is no desktop, task bar, system tray or side bar. Instead you are left with a totally black screen and a single My Computer Explorer window. Even this window might be minimized making it hard to see.”

Now that Microsoft is offering a free anti-virus software to the public called Microsoft Security Essentials, the anti-virus vendors are not too happy, which is understandable. But the way some of them are fighting back is rather strange. For example, Sophos, which offers security products such as anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall client decided to get even with Microsoft by making claims that Windows 7 failed to prevent 80% of malware attacks in their lab test. According to Sophos,  “Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows.”

What Sophos didn’t tell everyone was that the Windows 7 computer that they tested didn’t have any anti-virus software. Hello? Anybody home? Sophos completely rigged the results as if no one would notice that they were cheating. Microsoft didn’t think this was funny and fired back.

I understand that Sophos didn’t like the fact that Microsoft is offering a free anti-virus software tool but I am sure they could have used a better way to express their frustration. Risking your credibility may not be an ideal way to fight back but that’s exactly what Sophos did. Hopefully other vendors will use better judgment.

I read this article on TechRepublic today that says IT leaders trust Microsoft more than Google, 2 to 1. Google has been trying to go after Microsoft in the area of business applications and has launched its “Go Google” ad campaign. However, Google has its work cut out because IT management has to be convinced that it’s safe to transfer their internal data to Google’s data centers. After all the issues with security and privacy that Google has been blamed over the years it’s no surprise that most IT managers aren’t in favor of what they might consider as the fox guarding the hen house.

Google has received scathing reviews from security experts. Google’s chrome browser has been referred to as a “Security nightmare.” Google has also been increasingly embroiled in international political disputes over copyright and censorship. In 2007, Privacy International (PI), a human rights research and campaign organization, prepared a report following a six-month investigation into the privacy practices of key Internet-based companies, which included Amazon, Yahoo!, Microsoft, YouTube, Apple, Facebook, BBC, etc. Based on the study, PI ranked Google at the bottom of the stack.

Brian Livingston addressed the security issue of complete hijacking of your Web site traffic in an article Beware of Google Hijacking.

Google’s sponsored-link ads may have helped turn the world’s best-known search engine into a financial powerhouse but Google also came under attack for contributing to spyware practices that undermine trust on the Web.

There are lots of good things that Google has done in the past but Google has also been involved in some controversies as of late. It is no surprise that 67% of the IT Executives in a TechRepublic poll trusted Microsoft over Google.

On win741.com, Microsoft has announced a super deal for students in the United States.

For a limited time, eligible college students can get the sweetest deal on Windows 7 - for only $29.99 USD. That’s less than most of your textbooks! Hurry — offer ends January 3, 2010 at 12:00 am CST.

If you are an MSDNAA student, you may be able to get it for free. Contact your school for more details. If you are not familiar with MSDNAA, it’s the MSDN Academic Alliance, an inexpensive way for academic departments to make the latest Microsoft software available in labs, classrooms, and on student PCs. The program, which is available in more than 45 countries worldwide.

Students can click here to check their eligibility.