Windows 8 Update: New Kindle takes on Microsoft Surface 2 in workplace

Windows 8 Update: New Kindle takes on Microsoft Surface 2 in workplace
Also, nobody but Microsoft will touch Windows RT, Bill Gates gets his purple wish

The new Kindle Fire HDX tablet is giving Microsoft's Surface 2 a run for its money as a business device even though the Surface 2 won't be available until next month.

Kindle HDX can view Microsoft Office applications via OfficeSuite Viewer, can grab emails from a corporate Exchange server via ActiveSync, prints wirelessly and supports Bluetooth keyboards and mice.

It can be brought under the purview of AirWatch, MaaS360, Citrix, GoodTechnology, and SOTI mobile device management platforms to control network configuration, security, feature controls, inventory and to manage apps.

IN PICTURES: Quick Look: Microsoft’s new Surface family and accessories

BACKGROUND: Microsoft brings longer battery life, faster processors to Surface

FEATURES: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2: On battery life, colors and 'lapability'

It supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE (from AT&T or Verizon).

The company promises more: hardware device encryption, VPN support, single sign-on via the Amazon Silk browser that comes with the device and support for digital certificates.

Amazon provides Whispercast, a Web tool for distributing apps and documents.

With an 8.9-inch screen in the large model, the device is smaller than the 10.6-inch Surface 2. Other features the Surface 2 has that Kindle HDX doesn’t: a full Microsoft Office suite and Windows 8.1 with its VPN, access control and a feature called Workplace Join that enables connecting to Windows Server environments.

Still, Amazon is pushing its new device, available in December, as workplace friendly.

The price for the 64GB Kindle with LTE is $579, and without LTE it’s $479. The 64GB Kindle without LTE is $549, and no word on what the version with LTE will cost when it comes out next year.

Depending on how well the Android-based Kindles sell this holiday season, IT departments with BYOD policies could start seeing them show up in the office. Android-based tablets sell much better than Windows RT tablets.

Has the Surface 2 Mini been announced already?

CNET reports that based on analysts’ information, Microsoft is working on a 7.5-inch Surface 2 due out next year. It ties that together with an earlier Microsoft statement that Windows RT is based on ARM processors for their built-in mobile broadband support, indicating the Mini might have broadband.

This week Microsoft promised a Surface tablet next year with mobile broadband. Perhaps this is the Mini. What the company said doesn’t rule it out: “We didn't talk about it today, but Surface 2 will be launching an awesome LTE SKU early next year!” says Microsoft’s Surface vice president Panos Panay in a Reddit chat.

Microsoft sews up the Windows RT market

Now that Dell has dumped its own XPS Windows RT tablet, Microsoft is the only hardware vendor using the platform, which is a bundled hardware-software package based on ARM chips that hasn’t seen much uptake in its first year of existence.

That means that if Microsoft hadn’t decided to make its own hardware, likely nobody would be selling Windows RT right now. Given that pure hardware vendors know a thing or two about what sells, Windows RT has received a resounding thumbs-down.

Microsoft announced a blade cover/keyboard this week when it unveiled its upgraded Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets that could offer some interesting possibilities for programmers.

The blade shown off by Microsoft is a snap on touchpad very much like a Touch Cover 2 keyboard only it’s embossed with a 16-key number pad and three sliders for mixing music.

But given that the Remix Project is based on the basic keyboard hardware, it seems programmers could write code for it that would do something else besides typing characters and mixing music – perhaps drawing and painting, controlling industrial equipment, whatever.
Opening up an API for the keyboards and turning it loose on developers would no doubt generate a lot more possibilities.

The color purple

The Verge recalled that last year just after Windows 8 launched a Microsoft ad showed a hypothetical Bill Gates text to Steve Ballmer, suggesting a purple Type Cover keyboard for Surface tablets. This week, Microsoft announced a purple Type Cover.

Gates still has clout.

Here’s the ad, with Gates’s text shown at 13 sec.

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8 hot IT skills for 2014

8 hot IT skills for 2014

When it comes to overall job prospects for IT professionals, 2014 will look a lot like this year, with 32% of companies expecting to increase head count in their IT shops, compared with 33% in 2013, according to Computerworld's annual Forecast survey.

But while demand will remain steady overall, there have been a few changes in the skill sets most desired by hiring managers. Unemployment "is probably close to zero for people with high-demand skill sets," says Michael Kirven, founder and CEO of Mondo, a technology resource provider. Employers in search of top skills, he says, need to be prepared to move fast. "If you want them, you can be 100% sure there are at least two other firms that want them, as well," he says.

1. Programming/application development

" 49% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 1

As it did in the 2013 Forecast survey, programming/application development tops the list of hot skills, although just under half of the 221 respondents said they will hire in this area, compared with 60% last year. Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, parent of IT jobs website Dice.com, concurs that software developers are the most sought-after technology workers and notes that they enjoy one of the lowest unemployment rates around -- just 1.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's no wonder, then, that respondents to the Computerworld 2014 Forecast survey named developer and programmer job openings as the most difficult to fill. The hottest specialties within that category, Melland says, are mobile development expertise and experience building secure applications.

Carbonite, an online backup service provider, expects to find a tight market for software developers and engineers as it shifts its business model to focus on the needs of small businesses, says Randy Bogue, vice president of talent at the Boston-based company. "While there are a lot of experienced software developers in the Boston area, there are just as many technology companies looking to hire them," he says. "We find this while looking for front-end developers, user experience engineers, mobile developers and pretty much any other software development position."

Lucille Mayer, CIO at BNY Mellon, also expects to have difficulty finding developers. The financial services company has several hundred openings, mainly in New York City and Pittsburgh, and about 40% of those are in development. Another 30% are in infrastructure, 20% are for business analysis/project management positions, and 10% are in management.

"Demand is high for skilled developers with three to five years' experience and a service delivery orientation," says Mayer, who is particularly interested in people with object-oriented development experience. Also important is finding people from diverse backgrounds, with diverse ideas and perspectives, she says.

Hospitality giant Hyatt is transitioning from a reliance on third-party service providers and aims to bring more development talent in-house. "We're looking to hire people who embrace agility and speed to move ideas to prototype and production quickly," says Alex Zoghlin, Hyatt's global head of technology.

2. Help desk/technical support

" 37% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 3

Help desk/tech support remained near the top of the list, moving up from No. 3 last year. Melland says that's an encouraging sign for the economy and the overall hiring outlook. "Organizations mainly add help desk and tech support when they're adding workers and expanding their technology infrastructure," he says. Also contributing to demand for support technicians is the fact that many companies are bringing the help desk back in-house after outsourcing that function; that's partly a response to the proliferation of mobile devices and company-provided Web services. Because of the complexity of such setups, "it's important for support staff to really understand what the company is doing, which argues for having this function closer to home," Melland says.

After several years of running a lean support function, Wolverine Advanced Materials in Dearborn, Mich., plans to hire a few help desk staffers in response to business growth and a decision to provide ITIL-based service management, says James Bland, network manager at the automotive materials supplier. "There is growth in the company, so we're more confident in hiring," he says.

3. Networking

" 31% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 8

Demand for networking skills jumped to No. 3 from eighth place last year. This correlates with the results of a recent survey by IT hiring firm Robert Half Technology, in which 55% of the respondents named network administration as the skill

The need for wireless connectivity is probably behind the interest in networking professionals, Melland says. "Demand for people with wireless networking experience is up 9% year over year," he says, and the unemployment rate for network and systems administrators is 1.1%.

Charles Whitby, lead network analyst at the Medical Center of Central Georgia, says growing use of wireless medical devices is definitely fueling his workload. In addition to the increased network traffic they produce, those devices require a lot of troubleshooting -- as is the case when, for example, their firmware needs upgrading but it hasn't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, he says.

Meanwhile, at Wolverine, Bland is looking to offload some networking responsibilities so he can concentrate on more strategic issues.

4. Mobile applications and device management

" 27% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 9

With mobile devices proliferating in both the corporate and consumer worlds, it's little wonder that mobile skills catapulted toward the top of the list, from No. 9 last year. And because of mobile's relatively new status, it's also not surprising that Computerworld survey respondents named mobile expertise the third most difficult skill to find, after development and BI/analytics skills.


Which of these skills do you expect it will be most difficult to hire for?

Among respondents who expect an increase in IT employee head count in the next 12 months

Programming/application development 32%

Business intelligence/analytics 21%

Mobile applications and device management 17%

Project management 14%

Security 14%

Source: Computerworld Forecast survey; base: 221 IT executive respondents; June 2013

Mobile app development is "a huge initiative" at PrimeLending in Dallas, says CIO Tim Elkins, and it will be a key hiring area next year. In addition to expanding its Salesforce.com development ranks, the mortgage provider hopes to hire two or three mobile developers, he says. PrimeLending's first mobile app is designed to enable its business partners -- real estate agents and builders -- to view loan statuses; its next one will be for consumers.

Elkins anticipates difficulty finding mobile developers and is therefore training a couple of current staffers to fill the need. "Salesforce.com developers are really tough to find because of the high demand, and so are mobile developers," he says.

Mobile expertise is also a priority for Hyatt, and Zoghlin says the company is trying to fill niche roles to ensure a consistent strategy across areas like mobility and user experience.

5. Project Management

" 25% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 2

While project management fell from its No. 2 position last year, it is considered a highly sought-after skill. Melland says that Dice has found demand for project managers to be second only to demand for software developers/engineers, having risen 11% from last year. That uptick, he says, is another positive sign for the economy as a whole, because it indicates that companies are willing to pursue strategic projects.

Mondo's Kirven attributes the demand for project managers to renewed interest in complex, strategic business-technology initiatives. "IT has historically been graded based on the success or failure of projects, so [companies are] making heavy investments in the business analyst/project manager layer," he says. "These people need to be able to talk to developers about technology and the right solution, but they also need to put on their business hat to gather requirements and prioritize needs and translate that into a programmable effort for IT."

6. Database Administration

" 24% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: Not ranked

Database administration -- which didn't even make last year's list -- will be hot in 2014, likely because of interest in big data. Kirven concedes that the term big data is a catch-all for everything companies want to do with the burgeoning stockpiles of information they store on internal systems and, increasingly, collect from sources such as social media sites, the Web and third parties. Much of the interest in big data originates in marketing, which wants to learn as much about customers as possible.

"Oracle DBAs, data architects -- these people stay on the market for about an hour until they're hired," Kirven says. "People are looking for that person who can build a logical data map of their systems and aggregate relevant data so they can analyze and report on it."

DBAs with experience moving pieces of the IT infrastructure to the cloud will be highly sought after, says Melland, noting that demand for cloud skills is up 32% from last year.

To help kick off PrimeLending's big data initiative, Elkins says he is seeking systems analysts, developers and DBAs to integrate data from third parties, with the goal of easing the mortgage process. "Mortgages have been like a big black hole, with a lack of transparency and a lot of sitting and waiting," Elkins says. "Our focus in 2014 is to give consumers more control and an experience with mortgages that they've never had before."

7. Security Compliance/Governance

" 21% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 4

Security expertise seems to show up on every list of hot IT skills, and Melland says interest in cybersecurity will further drive demand, which is up 23% from last year. "It's one of those skills that falls into a lot of job types, like network engineering, software development and database architecture," he says. Respondents to a recent Robert Half Technology survey said security jobs are among the most challenging to fill, in addition to application development and database management positions.

With the increase in malware and cyberattacks, security has become a No. 1 priority for PrimeLending, which doubled its security staff this year, from four to eight people, Elkins says.

8. Business Intelligence/Analytics

" 18% of respondents said that they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

" Last year's ranking: No. 5

With the volume of global data predicted to expand by a factor of 44 from 2009 to 2020 and reach 35.2 zettabytes, according to IDC, companies are eager to gain a competitive edge by developing sophisticated analytics capabilities. Although BI/analytics is still considered a specialty and therefore has fewer postings than other job categories on Dice.com, Melland says it's the third fastest-growing skill area on the website, and demand is up 100% from last year. Analytics expertise is scarce, ranking second among the most difficult skills to find in the Computerworld survey. Accordingly, these professionals command high salaries, often into the six figures, Melland says.

At Wolverine, management's demand for data-driven insights is growing, so Bland is looking for people with BI skills who are also familiar with the Plex Systems ERP application, which the company uses. "We would definitely like to get more information out of [our ERP] system, so someone with BI experience would be great," he says. "We'd like to provide more information in a more timely manner so the business can be more proactive." Hyatt, says Zoghlin, is similarly looking for people "who can make analytics usable and useful for customers and colleagues."

Forecast 2014

Looking Beyond Tech Skills When Hiring IT Workers

Technology skills aren't the only factor to consider when assessing candidates for IT jobs. Employers should also consider applicants' interpersonal skills to ensure new hires will be effective in the workplace. The two most important characteristics, according to the Computerworld Forecast survey, are the ability to collaborate (cited by 66% of the respondents) and the ability to communicate with business users (62%). This comes as no surprise to Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings. "So much technology is being used in every part of the organization that you need people who are good communicators," he says.

James Bland, network manager at Wolverine Advanced Materials, says those are skills he will seek in new hires. "I want to empower our users to know how IT can help them be more efficient and get their job done," he says, and that can happen only when IT helps translate systems capabilities into something the user can put to good use. "You can implement the best systems in the world, but if people don't understand what to do with them, they're useless," Bland says.

Lucille Mayer, CIO at BNY Mellon, says a customer-service mentality is a must. "Our IT department is called Client Technology Solutions, and every one of us has a client customer, whether it be internal or external," she says. "A service orientation and being customer-focused, collaborative and a great communicator is essential."

An important communication skill is speaking the language of various business domains, such as marketing, sales and finance, Melland says. In fact, according to Michael Kirven at Modis, employers are increasingly seeking people with knowledge of business disciplines in addition to tech skills, whether it's an HTML5 developer who understands the supply chain in retail or a Java developer with experience in financial derivatives trading systems. "Specialization can really drive innovation," he says.

At PrimeLending, it's all about cultural fit. "We hire for culture first," says CIO Tim Elkins. This is particularly true at the leadership level. "If we're going to hire a new manager, it's not just a matter of whether they're a good leader but whether they can adapt to our style," which Elkins calls "servant leadership" -- meaning leaders are called to serve, not order people around.

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PC satisfaction scores dip as customers drift to tablets

'Misalignment of expectations' caused by Windows 8 disconnect with traditional computing devices, says pollster

The jarring combination of Microsoft's radical reinvention of Windows with old-style hardware caused the average satisfaction score of PC makers to slip in the last year, a pollster said today.

Meanwhile, Apple again took top honors by tying its own 2011 record in computing device customer satisfaction as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a consumer survey that's tracked opinions on technology for 18 years.

Apple's score of 87 -- out of a possible 100 -- was up one point from 2012 and seven points higher than its closest competitor.

The ACSI survey polled more than 2,700 Americans in April and May, asking them to rate their experiences with recently purchased devices -- desktop and notebook personal computers, as well as tablets -- sold by Apple, Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. The rest of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) were lumped into a secondary "All Others" category in ACSI's results.

With a score of 80, HP was Apple's nearest rival; other OEMs collected scores between 76 and 79.

Although both HP and Toshiba increased their ACSI ratings by a point compared to 2012's poll, Dell and Acer dropped two points and All Others fell four points. The average of all those, other than Apple, fell by a point, a decline of 1.3% over the prior year.

David VanAmburg, the managing director of ACSI, did not point a finger at Microsoft's Windows 8 for the slip in PC satisfaction -- as have some industry analysts -- but acknowledged it was a contributor.

"It's not so much Windows 8 itself as the incongruity between the operating system and most of the devices it's sold with," said VanAmburg. "There's a disconnect between what Windows 8 is touting and the desktop and laptop environment. I'd call it a misalignment of expectations."

VanAmburg was referring to Microsoft's pitch that Windows 8 is a "touch-first" OS that works best on touch- and gesture-enabled hardware, like tablets, and the inability of hardware makers to capitalize on that either on tablets or touch-ready notebooks.

Choices in the latter have been relatively skimpy, and prices have been considerably higher than for laptops that rely on a mouse -- or a touchpad -- and a keyboard. "If [OEMs] could get to lower prices on touch, it could be a whole different ball game," said VanAmburg, echoing Microsoft's own belief.

The lower scores overall for traditional PC makers, and the slip in ratings for the likes of Dell and Acer, neither of which has scored in tablets, are expressions of consumers' search for something more than PCs can provide, said VanAmburg.

"What we're seeing in our data is the same as what we're seeing in PC sales, that the trend toward greater mobility continues to gather steam," VanAmburg said. "Mobility is so attractive [it's] driving people away from PCs."

To tablets, specifically. On average, tablets recorded a satisfaction score of 81, two points higher than traditional PC form factors. "Tablets are just a more satisfying computing device," said VanAmburg, citing the data. Smartphones, too, have scored higher than PCs in ACSI's recent surveys.

PC shipments have contracted for five consecutive quarters, research firm IDC has said, and the slump shows no sign of ending before 2015. The decline in traditional PC sales -- from which Microsoft has always generated the bulk of its Windows revenue -- has put the Redmond, Wash., developer in a tough spot, and spurred it to aim for a "devices-and-services" strategy, revamp its corporate structure and look for a new CEO.

That the cause of those seismic shifts -- consumers' preference for more smartphones and tablets over PCs -- caused desktop and notebook makers' scores to drop didn't surprise VanAmburg.

"We would have been surprised if Apple had dropped, or PC makers suddenly surged to the top," said VanAmburg. "But this is a revolution like what happens to the industry every few years. A while ago, it was laptops. 'You mean I can pick up my computer and take it somewhere?' This is the next generation of that. People are increasingly adopting tablets and smartphones and buying fewer desktops and laptops."

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Availing the MCTS Certification

The MCTS Certification is one of the most advanced and important career oriented IT program that is currently being pursued by thousands of candidates all over the world. Since, this is a tough exam, it is necessary for the individuals to study very hard and put all efforts to qualify the exam. Hence, the preparation needs to be adequate and the skills derived from the program should be sound and appropriate, so that they can be put to good use at the time of the work.

Studying for the MCTS training program
It is necessary for the candidates to give enough time for studying and preparing for the MCTS exam. They need to undergo frequent practice tests, to ensure that they have a proper understanding of the different topics covered in the MCTS course and to ensure that they are ready to undergo the certification examination. This will not only help them to build immense confidence, but also provide them the much needed boost to their existing skills and knowledge. Therefore, preparation for the exam should be adequate and plenty of research needs to be done by the candidate, to ensure better grades. The Knowledge Academy professionals are well versed with the different types of topics that are covered in the course. This is because, they are provided with adequate training in the MCTS program and taken through various practical sessions, for giving them a better and clear understanding of the program.

MCTS course for facing challenges
It is important for the candidates to undergo the program seriously and sincerely, since, it would give them proper exposure on the MCTS Certification and help them to acquire the necessary skills that would be required for implementing in the work place. The exam presents the candidate with a chance to challenge their acquired knowledge and to understand how well they have learnt the program. Presently, the candidates are provided with three different formats, which include case study formats that would challenge their analytical skills, virtual labs and simulations for testing their knowledge and skills within the real setting.

The MCTS training program also presents the candidate with a chance to have a wonderful career change, in case they are finding their present one to be not quite rewarding. It has been noticed that candidates, who have successfully completed the program are presented with plenty of job opportunities and are provided with better positions and wonderful pay package. Moreover, the MCTS program also prepares the candidates to get a proper career change and to get a lucrative and rewarding career. A good MCTS training program is sure to include the study kits, audio and video presentations, preparation labs, mock test questions, study guides, self-study training kits and an access to a qualified and trained instructor, who would make all the difference to the entire MCTS course. This is sure to improve the knowledge of the individuals and help them to ascertain a better and rewarding career. Also, the candidates are sure to enjoy their training program and gain plenty of knowledge from it.

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IT hiring: Your text resume is soooo last century

Have a solid or bland background. Check behind you for distracting artwork, offensive material and unkempt home offices. (Hiring managers say they have indeed seen all of those during video interviews.)

Maintain eye contact by sitting still and looking into the camera. You don't want to fidget or multitask; such behavior wouldn't fly in an in-person interview, so it won't suit a video interview or presentation either.

Dress as you would for a face-to-face interview. (For those who need reminding, that means business attire suitable to the position and the company's culture.)

Guard against interruptions. Shut off your phone. Give the dog a bone, and make sure no one comes knocking at the door.

Don't forget to smile.

Others say video interviews -- either live or pre-recorded -- help by winnowing out candidates who might have Googled answers while on a phone interview, as well as those who lack interpersonal skills, which are of particular importance for IT professionals who interact with customers, executives, board members or the public.

On the other hand, some point to potential problems using video when screening candidates. Some employers wonder if it will open them up to claims of discrimination as they can more easily see traits (age or ethnicity, for example) that they shouldn't use to eliminate candidates. Other tech industry watchers worry that video interviews could unfairly prioritize presentation skills for jobs that don't necessarily require them. After all, coders don't need to come off well on camera to do a bang-up job, the argument goes.

Reed says such concerns keep many companies from adopting video as part of their candidate search and screening process. "Companies don't want to be susceptible to accusations," he says. He points out that candidates, too, often hesitate to use these tools because they're worried about where their videos will reside and for how long.

Resumes gain graphic, social flourishes

That said, video is nevertheless becoming more prevalent in the IT hiring process, just one of the multiple new formats and platforms that candidates are beginning to utilize for job searches. "The resume hasn't changed in the past 40 years. It just feels like it's time for it to evolve, and technology is at a place where it's helping us evolve it," Pollock says.

Pollock says he's seeing candidates successfully use graphics to represent skill sets, responsibilities and accomplishments on or as a supplement to their text-based resumes. Some IT workers, particularly Web designers or UI and UX professionals, maintain online portfolios or submit links to their work.

Others, such as developers, point to their contributions to open-source communities like GitHub. And, of course, job shoppers ignore at their own peril the reach of LinkedIn and, to a lesser extent, other social media sites like Facebook, Google+ or even Instagram.

"[Hiring companies] want to see what people are doing within the tech community, the development space, are they contributing? So I encourage people to have a strong digital profile as well as a resume, and LinkedIn is the primary tool for a strong digital profile," says Doug Schade, principal consultant in the software technology search division at Waltham, Mass.-based search firm WinterWyman.

Schade says savvy candidates know how to leverage social media to separate themselves from the pack. They don't just paste their traditional resumes into their LinkedIn profiles but rather focus on showcasing themselves with links and presentations that highlight their skills and accomplishments.

"There is an opportunity to be more robust with one's persona," Schade says, "because social media is used by hiring managers to gain more intel, gain more insight."

Web developer Avery Anderson gets that. Anderson, 27, graduated in 2008 from the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Mass., with a degree in mechanical engineering. She worked in the field for a year but decided it wasn't the best fit.

Anderson did some contract work in robotics, and then in February 2010 she sought out a Web engineer position at an Internet start-up for wine aficionados called Second Glass. "Web development seemed like a huge opportunity, but I didn't have a lot of experience, so I started with a personal website. It was like, 'See, I can make website.' That got me in the door," says Anderson, who was hired right away.

When she left Second Glass in April 2012, Anderson turned to her website again, tweaking and updating it to reflect more of her skills and personality. She says her site, along with her LinkedIn profile and her account at the online developers' site GitHub, got plenty of traffic; she estimates she was contacted by about 50 recruiters during her two-month job search, contacts that led to nearly 10 interviews -- including some Skype sessions.

She landed a software engineer job with The Minerva Project, a startup that's building an elite online university. Although she was introduced to the organization through a roommate, she says she knows the company checked her out online before she even walked in the door. "People Internet-stalk everyone before meeting in person," she observes.

And even though she's not looking for a new job now, she keeps up her personal website to have what she calls "a landing page" for people who want to know more about her and her work -- a particularly important point as she tries to gain more experience, recognition and speaking engagements.

"It's not just about what jobs you get. Every time you do things like that and work your way into the community more, you make yourself more valuable as an employable person, you build your reputation," she says.

Ondrey, the Marist College applications report specialist, says he and his colleagues are getting that message, so they're beefing up their online professional presence by posting or Tweeting articles they find interesting along with their own commentary. They're updating their skill sets and responsibilities more frequently. And they're adding videos -- both their own and others that are relevant to their field of interest.

That fits with what's happening at Appirio, a San Francisco-based cloud technology company with 650 employees globally.

"We have definitely seen more candidates modify their resumes to include links to their social media profiles," says Jennifer Taylor, Appirio's senior vice president of HR. Resumes now include Twitter handles and links to LinkedIn profiles and to blogs.

The process works both ways, Taylor says; she and her colleagues use social media to reach out to potential prospects. "Often we have found that it's through a Twitter conversation that one of our employees will identify someone in the ecosystem who is contributing unique ideas or products. We use those as an opportunity to say, 'Look at what this person is doing, we should start a conversation with this person,'" she says.

And while she says she hasn't yet received a video resume, she and her hiring managers use video to promote the company to prospective employees as well as to interview candidates -- something they do live using Skype, Google+ and occasionally GoToMeeting with video.

"We still believe that there is no replacement for face-to-face interviews, and we do make that a requirement before anyone is hired. But video is a very powerful format," she says. "It makes information about our company as available as possible, and it gets people familiar with us. It creates some rapport right off the bat. The candidate feels like they're getting to know us and vice versa."

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Top worst ten bugs in history of software.

History's Worst Software Bugs
Last month automaker Toyota announced a recall of 160,000 of its Prius hybrid vehicles following reports of vehicle warning lights illuminating for no reason, and cars' gasoline engines stalling unexpectedly. But unlike the large-scale auto recalls of years past, the root of the Prius issue wasn't a hardware problem -- it was a programming error in the smart car's embedded code. The Prius had a software bug.

With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer -- a club that began in 1945 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system.The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found."

Sixty years later, computer bugs are still with us, and show no sign of going extinct. As the line between software and hardware blurs, coding errors are increasingly playing tricks on our daily lives. Bugs don't just inhabit our operating systems and applications -- today they lurk within our cell phones and our pacemakers, our power plants and medical equipment. And now, in our cars.

But which are the worst?

It's all too easy to come up with a list of bugs that have wreaked havoc. It's harder to rate their severity. Which is worse -- a security vulnerability that's exploited by a computer worm to shut down the internet for a few days or a typo that triggers a day-long crash of the nation's phone system? The answer depends on whether you want to make a phone call or check your e-mail.

Many people believe the worst bugs are those that cause fatalities. To be sure, there haven't been many, but cases like the Therac-25 are widely seen as warnings against the widespread deployment of software in safety critical applications. Experts who study such systems, though, warn that even though the software might kill a few people, focusing on these fatalities risks inhibiting the migration of technology into areas where smarter processing is sorely needed. In the end, they say, the lack of software might kill more people than the inevitable bugs.

What seems certain is that bugs are here to stay. Here, in chronological order, is the Wired News list of the 10 worst software bugs of all time … so far.

July 28, 1962 -- Mariner I space probe. A bug in the flight software for the Mariner 1 causes the rocket to divert from its intended path on launch. Mission control destroys the rocket over the Atlantic Ocean. The investigation into the accident discovers that a formula written on paper in pencil was improperly transcribed into computer code, causing the computer to miscalculate the rocket's trajectory.

1982 -- Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the Central Intelligence Agency allegedly (.pdf) plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet's history.

1985-1987 -- Therac-25 medical accelerator. A radiation therapy device malfunctions and delivers lethal radiation doses at several medical facilities. Based upon a previous design, the Therac-25 was an "improved" therapy system that could deliver two different kinds of radiation: either a low-power electron beam (beta particles) or X-rays. The Therac-25's X-rays were generated by smashing high-power electrons into a metal target positioned between the electron gun and the patient. A second "improvement" was the replacement of the older Therac-20's electromechanical safety interlocks with software control, a decision made because software was perceived to be more reliable.

What engineers didn't know was that both the 20 and the 25 were built upon an operating system that had been kludged together by a programmer with no formal training. Because of a subtle bug called a "race condition," a quick-fingered typist could accidentally configure the Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode but with the metal X-ray target out of position. At least five patients die; others are seriously injured.

1988 -- Buffer overflow in Berkeley Unix finger daemon. The first internet worm (the so-called Morris Worm) infects between 2,000 and 6,000 computers in less than a day by taking advantage of a buffer overflow. The specific code is a function in the standard input/output library routine called gets() designed to get a line of text over the network. Unfortunately, gets() has no provision to limit its input, and an overly large input allows the worm to take over any machine to which it can connect.

Programmers respond by attempting to stamp out the gets() function in working code, but they refuse to remove it from the C programming language's standard input/output library, where it remains to this day.

1988-1996 -- Kerberos Random Number Generator. The authors of the Kerberos security system neglect to properly "seed" the program's random number generator with a truly random seed. As a result, for eight years it is possible to trivially break into any computer that relies on Kerberos for authentication. It is unknown if this bug was ever actually exploited.

January 15, 1990 -- AT&T Network Outage. A bug in a new release of the software that controls AT&T's #4ESS long distance switches causes these mammoth computers to crash when they receive a specific message from one of their neighboring machines -- a message that the neighbors send out when they recover from a crash.

One day a switch in New York crashes and reboots, causing its neighboring switches to crash, then their neighbors' neighbors, and so on. Soon, 114 switches are crashing and rebooting every six seconds, leaving an estimated 60 thousand people without long distance service for nine hours. The fix: engineers load the previous software release.

1993 -- Intel Pentium floating point divide. A silicon error causes Intel's highly promoted Pentium chip to make mistakes when dividing floating-point numbers that occur within a specific range. For example, dividing 4195835.0/3145727.0 yields 1.33374 instead of 1.33382, an error of 0.006 percent. Although the bug affects few users, it becomes a public relations nightmare. With an estimated 3 million to 5 million defective chips in circulation, at first Intel only offers to replace Pentium chips for consumers who can prove that they need high accuracy; eventually the company relents and agrees to replace the chips for anyone who complains. The bug ultimately costs Intel $475 million.

1995/1996 -- The Ping of Death. A lack of sanity checks and error handling in the IP fragmentation reassembly code makes it possible to crash a wide variety of operating systems by sending a malformed "ping" packet from anywhere on the internet. Most obviously affected are computers running Windows, which lock up and display the so-called "blue screen of death" when they receive these packets. But the attack also affects many Macintosh and Unix systems as well.

June 4, 1996 -- Ariane 5 Flight 501. Working code for the Ariane 4 rocket is reused in the Ariane 5, but the Ariane 5's faster engines trigger a bug in an arithmetic routine inside the rocket's flight computer. The error is in the code that converts a 64-bit floating-point number to a 16-bit signed integer. The faster engines cause the 64-bit numbers to be larger in the Ariane 5 than in the Ariane 4, triggering an overflow condition that results in the flight computer crashing.

First Flight 501's backup computer crashes, followed 0.05 seconds later by a crash of the primary computer. As a result of these crashed computers, the rocket's primary processor overpowers the rocket's engines and causes the rocket to disintegrate 40 seconds after launch.

November 2000 -- National Cancer Institute, Panama City. In a series of accidents, therapy planning software created by Multidata Systems International, a U.S. firm, miscalculates the proper dosage of radiation for patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Multidata's software allows a radiation therapist to draw on a computer screen the placement of metal shields called "blocks" designed to protect healthy tissue from the radiation. But the software will only allow technicians to use four shielding blocks, and the Panamanian doctors wish to use five.

The doctors discover that they can trick the software by drawing all five blocks as a single large block with a hole in the middle. What the doctors don't realize is that the Multidata software gives different answers in this configuration depending on how the hole is drawn: draw it in one direction and the correct dose is calculated, draw in another direction and the software recommends twice the necessary exposure.

At least eight patients die, while another 20 receive overdoses likely to cause significant health problems. The physicians, who were legally required to double-check the computer's calculations by hand, are indicted for murder.

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