"A bill recently introduced in Congress would greatly expand the exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act for IT employees, ending overtime benefits for many more types of workers, including network, database and security specialists." The Democrat senator of North-Carolina has introduced an even worse version of the bill, which specifically exempts database and network specialists and security professionals from overtime benefits. Say, isn't some company building a huge data centre in North-Carolina? I'm sure it's all a coincidence.
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Member since:2011-01-28
Digsbo,
"I'm curious - where are you geographically that the IT market stinks, and for what specialties, if applicable?"
I've spent the entirety of my career on the US north eastern cost.
I had always wanted to specialise in low level algorithm/systems programming. I was in Rochester, NY with my newly minted CS degree when the dotcom bust occurred. I applied to the local places, Kodak being the most famous, but there were just too few opportunities for new grads amidst the layoffs, so I scampered back home. It was a small town and my previous employer of 4 years had gone under. I jumped between low paying jobs before I moved back to NYS for a $40k job, I went broke because my expenses exceeded my income (I was flabbergasted that I couldn't get car insurance for less than $2.2K/6mo, and my $800 rent was twice as much as I'd ever paid anywhere else for a shared living area, etc.). Believe it or not looking back at those years makes me laugh today.
I discovered that I could find much more work doing less technical jobs, like web design. But it's quite a jump down down in salary and prestige to what I consider my core abilities. I believe my work history is working against me when I apply for the more technical R&D roles I seek. I've been at interviews where they wouldn't consider abilities outside of my professional work history, even declining to look at my personal projects (I find some very interesting, I should post them here some time.)
I've switched to contracting projects, and I find that there is unmet demand for cheap developers doing web development, but I've had to lower my own rates compared to a few years ago, though it's inching back (ugh, then there's inflation). Also, I've learned the hard way that consultants cannot rely on 100% of the income they're supposed to receive. I'm owed a couple thousand dollars that I know I'll never see.
I'm not going to say CS is worse than any other career choice, it probably isn't. But anyone who thinks that there are tons of jobs awaiting anyone having talent and a degree needs a reality check. The universities have been pumping out tons of grads and there haven't been nearly enough jobs. Of course, local conditions may paint differing pictures, YMMV.
http://libn.com/2011/11/10/kamer-long-island-economy-at-a-crossroad...
My advice to anyone pursuing the field: Your classwork is much less important to getting a desirable job than having a proverbial foot in the door. Spend your energy accordingly and make connections with people having the authority to hire you upon graduation.
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2011-10-04
I'm curious - where are you geographically that the IT market stinks, and for what specialties, if applicable?