Think differentImage by Steve SauerFlowers, jewelry, candy – we've found geeky versions of today's go-to Valentine's Day gifts for sweethearts who dig science, math and technology.MORE IDEAS: Check out our Valentine’s Day gift guides from 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
2016 is set to be a year of shifts for IT – shuffling budget dollars, reconfiguring business processes, and recasting tech talent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The number of U.S. patents granted declined for the first time since 2007, ending a seven-year run of increases.According to IFI Claims Patent Services, there were 298,407 utility patents granted during the 2015 calendar year. That represents a decrease of almost 1% compared to 2014, when patent grants hit 300,674 and surpassed the 300,000 threshold for the first time. IFI, which specializes in patent analysis, tracks utility patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and each year it releases its annual ranking of the top 50 recipients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More than half (56%) of IT pros will be on-call or working during the holidays to troubleshoot tech problems, according to network management vendor Ipswitch. Past experience shows it’s necessary: among 378 IT pros surveyed, 38% say they’ve experienced a major network outage during a holiday break.Here are some additional findings from Ipswitch’s third annual "Happy Holidays?" survey: Days expected to be on-call or working
• Christmas Eve: cited by 29%• Christmas Day: 11%• New Year’s Eve: 11%• New Year’s Day: 5%To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Corporate giving is on the rise, and the tech industry is keeping pace. One big reason? It’s what the people want.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
IT managers responsible for finding new talent can expect a busy first half of the year, according to the latest forecast for tech hiring.
A solid 78% of hiring managers anticipate bringing on more tech people in the first six months of 2016 compared to the second half of 2015, reports tech career site Dice. Among those who see more hiring on the horizon, 71% plan to boost their teams by 11% or more.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear to be getting any easier to find skilled talent. Nearly half (49%) of hiring managers said the time to fill open positions has lengthened relative to last year, Dice reports. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
From Philadelphia to Phoenix and points in between, the Commvault Hockey Team is lacing up their skates this winter to raise awareness and money for children's organizations.The data-management vendor's Hockey Helping Kids program, now in its 16th season, runs hockey events in NHL arenas across the country. Employees, partners, customers and kids have a chance to skate with former NHL and Olympic players. Raffles and auctions are part of each day-long event, and all proceeds go to designated children’s charities.Getting kids, many of whom have disabilities, on the NHL ice with the other players is one of the most rewarding parts of the program, says Randy DeMeno, chief technologist at Commvault.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Techies pitch inTech companies are as creative in their social and charitable works as they are in their businesses. Cleaning up parks, teaching kids about technology, boxing donated food, running races – the projects are too numerous to list. We heard from dozens of tech vendors, big and small, about how they make time for employees to volunteer and participate in fundraising opportunities. While the events are all different, the outcome is universal: Giving back benefits not only the designated recipients but also the tech companies, which find employees are happier and work culture is stronger. Here are some of their firsthand accounts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network professionals continue to be among the toughest IT talent to find and hire – a situation that will drive up salaries in the coming year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Network professionals continue to be among the toughest IT talent to find and hire – a situation that will drive up salaries in the coming year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Petroleum engineering majors earn the highest mid-career salaries, followed by nuclear engineering majors, according to a new ranking from PayScale.The research company, which specializes in compensation data, ranked 319 majors at the bachelor level based on how much money graduates in each field are making. The top 25 bachelor-level majors all have mid-career median pay numbers above $100,000, and the vast majority of them are STEM majors.
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Among many disciplines in the compsci arena, graduates who earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering were ranked highest (6th place), reporting a median mid-career salary of $115,000. Computer science majors (ranked 18th) earn a median mid-career salary of $105,000. (See also: Top 25 computer science colleges)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
University of California, Santa Barbara, is the top computer science school in the U.S., according to a new salary-centric report from compensation specialist PayScale.The research company ranked 187 colleges and universities with computer science programs based on the median pay of the schools' compsci alumni. By that measure, University of California, Santa Barbara, led the pack, with its graduates reporting a median mid-career salary of $147,000, PayScale said. (PayScale also ranked the highest-paying college majors.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Inside CIO paychecksCIO salaries in the U.S. average between $157,000 and $262,500, according to Robert Half Technology. But salary is just the beginning. Cash bonuses and equity awards can propel pay packages into the millions. To find out how much CIOs at giant global companies really earn, we scoured the proxy statements of the 500 largest U.S. companies (according to Fortune's ranking) and found 25 that disclosed CIO pay. Here are the details on their pay packages, organized from lowest to highest paid. If available, compensation for these individuals in prior years is included.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The median pay for CEOs at 50 tech companies was $11.5 million in 2014, according to Network World's analysis of compensation packages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
LEAF Commercial Capital used to wrestle with tape backups for disaster recovery. Now the equipment leasing and finance company is using a software-based service from Evolve IP for disaster recovery.Rusty Lorenzon, director of IT Infrastructure at Philadelphia-based LEAF, says Evolve IP’s disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) has allowed the company to reduce its recovery-time objectives from 48 hours or more to four hours or less. At the same time, LEAF has reduced its disaster recovery operational expenses.“We adopted Evolve IP as an update to our traditional disaster recovery strategy, which had our team using tape backups and interfacing with various DR suppliers,” Lorenzon says. “Evolve IP DRaaS ZT is a flexible solution with an intuitive interface that is easy to configure and use. It’s built for the VMWare hypervisor and is completely SAN agnostic, which allows us to avoid SAN vendor lock-in.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Content is core to the work of Densho, an organization whose mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps during World War II.In the past, Densho needed a complex storage environment to house its 30TB of production data, says Geoff Froh, deputy director and CIO at the nonprofit organization based in Seattle.“The two-tier infrastructure was composed of high-performance SAN hardware and high-capacity consumer-grade NAS appliances. The SAN was expensive, difficult to manage and not scalable. The NAS gear was unreliable and lacked the IOPS to handle our workload,” Froh recalls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fave Raves 2015We asked, and IT pros answered. Their favorite tech products keep people productive and enterprise assets running safely and efficiently. Check out the must-haves.SEE ALSO: Security pros name their must-have tools | Go-to storage and disaster recovery products | IT pros in retail are sold on these 6 products | Tech pros' favorite tools increase IT efficiency | To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ann Bednarz