Seven tips on mentoring entry-level developers

Author: Justin James

Justin James has seen enough mentoring boondoggles to have a good idea of what does and doesn't work. He shares his ideas about how to have a successful software developer mentoring program.

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One of my recent TechRepublic polls covered the topic of why we hire entry-level programmers. According to the poll results, more than half of the respondents hire entry-level programmers so they can mentor them into the type of programmer they need.

Schools alone can't prepare programmers for the real world; some sort of internship or apprenticeship is needed to complete a programmer's education. Unfortunately, few schools offer rigorous internship programs; even worse, most companies simply don't have anyone with the time to properly mentor an intern. (My latest download is an example of what a good training program for developers might entail.)

If your organization is starting or revamping a mentorship program, read my ideas about how to have a successful software developer mentoring program. Before launching into my tips, it's important to note that not every senior developer makes a good mentor, and there's no shame in knowing your limitations. If you don't think you can fully commit to being a good mentor, or you don't think you have the necessary skills or traits to be one, then say something. It's better to admit that you aren't cut out for the task than to force yourself to do it and waste time and probably alienate a promising new employee.

1. Make mentoring a priority

I think the key ingredient in a successful mentoring relationship is giving the relationship priority above anything other than an emergency. It is the inability to give the relationship priority that makes true mentoring scenarios so rare. If you don't make the mentorship a priority, the new hire quickly senses that she is not important. She also quickly figures out that, when she goes to you for help, she is slowing you down from attending to your "real" priorities. The end result? She doesn't seek you for help, and she tries to do things on her own. Basically, you're no longer her mentor.

2. Have a road map

I've seen a number of mentoring programs sink because there is no plan. Someone is hired, and a more experienced developer is assigned to show that person the ropes. The experienced developer wasn't told about this new mentoring role until 9:05 AM on the new hire's first day. The would-be mentor takes the new hire on a tour of the building and introduces her to a few other teams — and that's the extent of "the ropes." The only thing the new employee usually learns is where to find the kitchen. You need to have a game plan with set goals (for the new hire and the mentor) and a list of topics to cover; otherwise, you'll both feel lost and give up before you even start.

3. Be tolerant of mistakes

Working with entry-level developers can be frustrating. They are not familiar with writing code in a real-world environment with version control, unit tests, and automated build tools. Also, they may have been taught outdated habits by a professor who last worked on actual code in 1987. Often, entry-level developers do not realize that the way they were taught to approach a problem may not be the only choice. But if your reaction to mistakes is to treat the developer like she is stupid or to blame (even if she is being stupid or is truly at fault), she probably won't respond well and won't be working with you much longer.

4. Assign appropriate projects

One of the worst things you can do is to throw an entry-level programmer at an extremely complex project and expect her to "sink or swim." Chances are, the programmer will sink; even worse, the programmer will add this project to her resume, and then she will run out of there as fast as she can just to get away from you. On the other hand, don't create busywork for the programmer; let her work on nagging issues in current products or internal projects that you never seem to have time to address. Once you gain confidence about what the programmer can accomplish, then you can assign a more difficult project.

5. Give and accept feedback

You can't successfully navigate a ship in the middle of an ocean without a compass. Likewise, the new employee will not achieve her goal of becoming a productive member of the team without knowing where she has been and where she is going. This means you need to give feedback on a regular basis, and the feedback needs to be appropriate. For instance, being sarcastic to someone who made an honest mistake is not helpful. Feedback has to be a two-way street as well; you need to be listening to them to find out what their concerns and questions are, and address them.

6. Listen to the new employee's ideas

Entry-level developers have a lot less built-in prejudices and biases than experienced developers. Sometimes the saying "out of the mouths of babes" really applies. A number of times in my career, I've seen a less-experienced employee point out an obvious answer that all of the more experienced employees overlooked. When you treat a new hire as a peer, it raises their confidence and makes them feel like part of the team.

7. Treat the developer with respect

Just because someone is entry-level, it doesn't mean that her job is to refill your coffee or pick up your lunch. She isn't rushing a sorority — she's trying to break into the development business. If you disrespect the developer, she might leave or go to HR about your behavior (and maybe still leave).

Rewarding experiences

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work closely with someone who was not as experienced as me, and we both learned a lot in the process. While I may not have officially been his mentor, it was a good description of our relationship. I still keep up with him, and we frequently talk about business, programming, and so on. He laughs at a lot of my more traditional development techniques, and I get to share with him some of the painful and costly lessons I've learned along the way.

If you're considering being a mentor, these relationships can be very rewarding. I hope the tips I presented will help you the next time an entry-level developer is assigned to your department.

J.Ja

10+ tips for using Word as an XML editor

Author: Susan Harkins

XML makes it possible for you to extract, manipulate, store, and reuse data from any number of sources - and Word 2003 and 2007 provide tools for working with XML files. Here are a few pointers that will make the process go more smoothly.

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Using XML, you can store data in a format that's easily available to other software. The resulting file contains not only the data, but also a description of the document in plain text. That makes reusing data much simpler because any software that can read plain text can read the data. Many will argue that Word isn't the right tool for editing XML files, but if Word is what you have, you want to get the job done efficiently and effectively.

Here are a few suggestions for simplifying your XML tasks in Word. (We're providing instructions for Word 2003, but the concepts are similar for Word 2007.)

Note: This article is also available a PDF download.

1: Use All Word Files

Most applications default to the application's format in the Open and Save dialog boxes. For instance, Word 2003 defaults to Word's .doc format. If you want to open a file type other than the default setting, you have to open the File Of Type drop-down list, choose the file type, and then let Word update the list. You can avoid several clicks if you set Word's default to display XML files by selecting All Word Documents from the File As Type list. Once you do, Word will always display XML files in the Name list, as shown in Figure A. Word will retain this setting until you change it.

Figure A

List all Word document types.

2: Save as XML

By default, Word saves files in document format (doc). If you work exclusively with XML files, you have to remember to change that setting every time you save a file. It may be more efficient to configure Word to save your documents as XML files automatically:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu.
2. Click the Save tab.
3. From the Save Word Files As drop-down list, choose XML Document (*.xml), as shown in Figure B, and click OK.

Figure B

Save word files to XML format automatically.

3: Right-click for attributes

When you open an XML document, Word displays both tags and content. It also opens the XML Structure task pane (to the right). Where are the attributes? To see attributes you must right-click an element and select Attributes from the resulting context menu. Doing so will display the Attributes For Item Dialog box, shown in Figure C. To change a value, select an attribute in the Assigned Attributes list and edit its value in the Value control. (If the task pane isn't visible, press [Ctrl]+[F1].)

Figure C

View an element's attributes.

If the element has multiple instances, the dialog box won't indicate which one you're working with. To avoid confusion, highlight the specific element before opening the Attributes For Item dialog box.

4: Find options

Word lets you control how it handles an XML file, but the configuration options can be difficult to find. You can take the traditional route to the options, as follows:

1. From the Tools menu, select Templates And Add-Ins.
2. Click the XML Schema tab.
3. Click the XML Options button to open the XML Options dialog box, shown in Figure D.

Figure D

Control how Word hands an XML file.

There's an easier way to get to the options. Click the XML Options link at the bottom of the XML Structure task pane, shown in Figure E. Keep in mind that these options work with the current document only. You must reset them if you open a different XML file.

Figure E

Bypass the menus and click the XML Options link to open the XML Options dialog box.

5: Edit more easily

If you plan to edit actual content, you don't need the tags. In fact, if you display them, you could accidentally delete one. To turn off tags while editing, uncheck the Show XML Tags In The Document option in the XML Structure dialog. To change a value, simply type over it. To delete a value, select the entire element, including the start and end tags (as indicated by the red borders). If you delete a value without deleting the element tags, you leave an empty element.

If you prefer to use a shortcut, press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+X. This combination toggles between hiding and showing tags.

6: Display empty elements

Generally, you should avoid empty elements, but there are circumstances where they're acceptable. If the Show XML Tags In The Document option is enabled, you won't see them, though, which can present problems. If you want to inhibit element names but still know when an element is empty, use placeholders as follows:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Templates And Add-Ins.
2. Click the XML Schema tab.
3. Click XML Options.
4. Check the Show Placeholder Text For All Empty Elements option in the XML View options, as shown in Figure F.
5. Click OK twice.

Figure F

Word will display placeholders for empty elements.

7: Avoid potential to lose data

A transform determines the data that makes it into a Word document. If the transform doesn't accommodate data in the file you open, that data doesn't make it to the open file. In this case, the transform works like a filter of sorts. For instance, you might use a transform to produce a list of products and prices. Another transform might include product names, prices, and a description of the product. Instead of opening the original file and manually deleting the data you don't want, the transform does it for you automatically, just by applying the transform as you open the original file.

To open a file using a transform, choose Open With Transform from the Open button's drop-down list (in the Open dialog box.) You can also apply a transform when you save a file. In the Save As dialog box, choose XML Document (*.xml) from the File As Type option, check the Apply Transform option, and then click the Transform button to choose the transform you want to apply.

It's important to realize that not only does the transform work on the open file, but it also changes the original Word document. If you save the open file, those changes become permanent to the original file. If you apply a transform to the file you're saving, those changes also become permanent. To avoid losing data or otherwise altering the original file, save the transformed file using a new name. That simple step makes perfect sense, yet it's easy to forget. You don't always realize that the transform is filtering data. Since the original data is out of sight, it's also out of mind — and it's easy to forget that the original file might contain data not visible in the transformed file.

8: Download XML Reference schemas

If you plan to use Word to write code to manipulate XML format, download Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas or 2007 Office System: XML Schema Reference. These files are Help files for working with XML structure in Word. Download them and open the .chm files in your browser for easy reference and viewing while you work. If you need to share XML files with others, consider using Word 2003: XML Viewer.

9: Turn off namespace alias

Sometimes, element names in the XML Structure are long and rather meaningless, as shown in Figure G. That's because by default, the pane displays namespaces in element names.

Figure G

The namespaces, displayed by default, are confusing.

To inhibit the namespaces, do the following:

1. Click the XML Options link at the bottom of the XML Structure task pane.
2. Check Hide Namespace Alias In XML Structure Task Pane in the XML View options.
3. Click OK.

As you can see in Figure H the names are shorter and the list is much friendlier.

Figure H

Turn off the namespaces to view a friendlier list.

10: Prevent deletion of XML elements

You might not be the only person to edit an XML document. Fortunately, you can enable the document protection feature to protect XML tags while allowing others to edit the actual content. Just follow these steps:

1. Check Show XML Tags In The Document in the XML Structure task pane.
2. From the Tools menu, select Protect Document.
3. Check Allow Only This Type Of Editing In the Document in the Editing Restrictions section of the Protect Document task pane.
4. Select No Changes (Read Only). (That's the default, so you probably won't need to select it.)
5. In the document, select the contents of an element.
6. Then, check the Everyone option in the Exceptions (Optional) section in the Protect Document task pane, as shown in Figure I.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each XML tag that contains data you want to allow others to edit.
8. Click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.
9. To password-protect the document, enter the password twice; to encrypt the document, click User Authentication.
10. Click OK.

Figure I

Allow others to edit content.

11: View files in Office 2007

The Office 2007 applications use Office Open XML Format files. These files make use of ZIP compression technology. If you'd like to see the XML document parts for any Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (2007) file, change the file's four-character extension to ZIP. Then, open that file in your Windows Explorer. You'll see a few folders:

• The _rels folder contains a file named .rels that stores information about the relationships between items in the ZIP package. That's how Office 2007 knows where to find everything it needs when opening a document.
• The main document folder (word in figure x) stores the document's content and media files (pictures and so on). It also stores various document elements, such as settings, headers, and themes.
• The [Content_Types].xml file contains definitions of the types of content.

Using the ZIP extension method, you can quickly learn a lot about your document. Just be careful not to change the folder structure or alter filenames while you're exploring.

10 best practices for successful project management

• Author: Tom Mochal

The right mix of planning, monitoring, and controlling can make the difference in completing a project on time, on budget, and with high quality results. These guidelines will help you plan the work and work the plan.

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Given the high rate of project failures, you might think that companies would be happy to just have their project finish with some degree of success. That's not the case. Despite the odds, organizations expect projects to be completed faster, cheaper, and better. The only way that these objectives can be met is through the use of effective project management processes and techniques. This list outlines the major phases of managing a project and discusses key steps for each one.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

PLANNING

1: Plan the work by utilizing a project definition document

There is a tendency for IT infrastructure projects to shortchange the planning process, with an emphasis on jumping right in and beginning the work. This is a mistake. The time spent properly planning the project will result in reduced cost and duration and increased quality over the life of the project. The project definition is the primary deliverable from the planning process and describes all aspects of the project at a high level. Once approved by the customer and relevant stakeholders, it becomes the basis for the work to be performed. For example, in planning an Exchange migration, the project definition should include the following:

• Project overview: Why is the Exchange migration taking place? What are the business drivers? What are the business benefits?
• Objectives: What will be accomplished by the migration? What do you hope to achieve?
• Scope: What features of Exchange will be implemented? Which departments will be converted? What is specifically out of scope?
• Assumptions and risks: What events are you taking for granted (assumptions), and what events are you concerned about? Will the right hardware and infrastructure be in place? Do you have enough storage and network capacity?
• Approach: How will the migration project unfold and proceed?
• Organization: Show the significant roles on the project. Identifying the project manager is easy, but who is the sponsor? It might be the CIO for a project like this. Who is on the project team? Are any of the stakeholders represented?
• Signature page: Ask the sponsor and key stakeholders to approve this document, signifying that they agree on what is planned.
• Initial effort, cost, and duration estimates: These should start as best-guess estimates and then be revised, if necessary, when the workplan is completed.

PROJECT WORKPLAN

2: Create a planning horizon

After the project definition has been prepared, the workplan can be created. The workplan provides the step-by-step instructions for constructing project deliverables and managing the project. You should use a prior workplan from a similar project as a model, if one exists. If not, build one the old-fashioned way by utilizing a work-breakdown structure and network diagram.

Create a detailed workplan, including assigning resources and estimating the work as far out as you feel comfortable. This is your planning horizon. Past the planning horizon, lay out the project at a higher level, reflecting the increased level of uncertainty. The planning horizon will move forward as the project progresses. High-level activities that were initially vague need to be defined in more detail as their timeframe gets closer.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCEDURES

3: Define project management procedures up front

The project management procedures outline the resources that will be used to manage the project. This will include sections on how the team will manage issues, scope change, risk, quality, communication, and so on. It is important to be able to manage the project rigorously and proactively and to ensure that the project team and all stakeholders have a common understanding of how the project will be managed. If common procedures have already been established for your organization, utilize them on your project.

4: Manage the workplan and monitor the schedule and budget

Once the project has been planned sufficiently, execution of the work can begin. In theory, since you already have agreement on your project definition and since your workplan and project management procedures are in place, the only challenge is to execute your plans and processes correctly. Of course, no project ever proceeds entirely as it was estimated and planned. The challenge is having the rigor and discipline needed to apply your project management skills correctly and proactively.

• Review the workplan on a regular basis to determine how you are progressing in terms of schedule and budget. If your project is small, this may need to be weekly. For larger projects, the frequency might be every two weeks.
• Identify activities that have been completed during the previous time period and update the workplan to show they are finished. Determine whether there are any other activities that should be completed but have not been. After the workplan has been updated, determine whether the project will be completed within the original effort, cost, and duration. If not, determine the critical path and look for ways to accelerate these activities to get you back on track.

• Monitor the budget. Look at the amount of money your project has actually consumed and determine whether your actual spending is more than originally estimated based on the work that has been completed. If so, be proactive. Either work with the team to determine how the remaining work will be completed to hit your original budget or else raise a risk that you may exceed your allocated budget.

5: Look for warning signs

Look for signs that the project may be in trouble. These could include the following:

• A small variance in schedule or budget starts to get bigger, especially early in the project. There is a tendency to think you can make it up, but this is a warning. If the tendencies are not corrected quickly, the impact will be unrecoverable.
• You discover that activities you think have already been completed are still being worked on. For example, users whom you think have been migrated to a new platform are still not.
• You need to rely on unscheduled overtime to hit the deadlines, especially early in the project.
• Team morale starts to decline.
• Deliverable quality or service quality starts to deteriorate. For instance, users start to complain that their converted e-mail folders are not working correctly.
• Quality-control steps, testing activities, and project management time starts to be cut back from the original schedule. A big project, such as an Exchange migration, can affect everyone in your organization. Don't cut back on the activities that ensure the work is done correctly.

If these situations occur, raise visibility through risk management, and put together a plan to proactively ensure that the project stays on track. If you cannot successfully manage through the problems, raise an issue.

MANAGING SCOPE

6: Ensure that the sponsor approves scope-change requests

After the basics of managing the schedule, managing scope is the most important activity required to control a project. Many project failures are not caused by problems with estimating or team skill sets but by the project team working on major and minor deliverables that were not part of the original project definition or business requirements. Even if you have good scope-management procedures in place, there are still two major areas of scope-change management that must be understood to be successful: understanding who the customer is and scope creep.

In general, the project sponsor is the person funding the project. For infrastructure projects like an Exchange migration, the sponsor might be the CIO or CFO. Although there is usually just one sponsor, a big project can have many stakeholders, or people who are impacted by the project. Requests for scope changes will most often come from stakeholders — many of whom may be managers in their own right. One manager might want chat services for his or her area. Another might want an exception to the size limits you have placed on mailboxes. It doesn't matter how important a change is to a stakeholder, they can't make scope-change decisions, and they can't give your team the approval to make the change. In proper scope-change management, the sponsor (or a designate) must give the approval, since they are the only ones who can add funding to cover the changes and know if the project impact is acceptable.

7: Guard against scope creep

Most project managers know to invoke scope-change management procedures if they are asked to add a major new function or a major new deliverable to their project. However, sometimes the project manager doesn't recognize the small scope changes that get added over time. Scope creep is a term used to define a series of small scope changes that are made to the project without scope-change management procedures being used. With scope creep, a series of small changes — none of which appear to affect the project individually — can accumulate and have a significant overall impact on the project. Many projects fail because of scope creep, and the project manager needs to be diligent in guarding against it.

MANAGING RISK

8: Identify risks up front

When the planning work is occurring, the project team should identify all known risks. For each risk, they should also determine the probability that the risk event will occur and the potential impact on the project. Those events identified as high-risk should have specific plans put into place to mitigate them so they do not, in fact, occur. Medium risks should be evaluated to see whether they need to be proactively managed. (Low-level risks may be identified as assumptions. That is, there is potential risk involved, but you are "assuming" that the positive outcome is much more probable.) Some risks are inherent in a complex project that affects every person in the company. Other risks may include not having the right level of expertise, unfamiliarity with the technology, and problems integrating smoothly with existing products or equipment.

9: Continue to assess potential risks throughout the project

Once the project begins, periodically perform an updated risk assessment to determine whether other risks have surfaced that need to be managed.

10: Resolve issues as quickly as possible

Issues are big problems. For instance, in an Exchange migration, the Exchange servers you ordered aren't ready and configured on time. Or perhaps the Windows forest isn't set up correctly and needs to be redesigned. The project manager should manage open issues diligently to ensure that they are being resolved. If there is no urgency to resolve the issue or if the issue has been active for some time, it may not really be an issue. It may be a potential problem (risk), or it may be an action item that needs to be resolved at some later point. Real issues, by their nature, must be resolved with a sense of urgency.

10 cool things you can do with a USB flash drive

Author: Greg Shultz

Your USB flash drive can do a whole lot more than just move data around. Greg Shultz introduces a variety of creative ways to put that drive to good use.

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Transporting your data is probably the most common use for a USB flash drive. But there's a world of other things you can do with these handy pocket-size drives. Here are 10 ways you can use that USB flash drive to do more than just move data.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

1: Run portable applications

In addition to storing your data, you can run portable applications from a USB flash drive. For example, OpenOffice, which is a complete office suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, drawing package, and database, is available as a portable application. Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are also available as portable applications. When you combine the office suite with the ability to surf the Web and check email, you'll be able to take your most vital computing applications with you wherever you go — right in your pocket.

If that's not enough, you can choose other applications to install on your USB flash drive from PortableApps.com (Figure A). You can even install an entire prepackaged suite of applications that includes such things as an audio player, games, an antivirus utility, and a handy menu system.

Figure A

The PortableApps.com suite comes with a menu system to allow you to easily access your portable applications.

2: Boot an operating system

If you want to do more than just run your own applications, you might want to consider booting an entire operating system from your USB flash drive. You can boot either Windows or Linux from a USB flash drive; however, the process is not an exact science and you may be in for a technical adventure.

Fortunately, there are some guides you can follow. To learn how to boot Windows XP from a USB flash drive, see the article Creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows XP. To learn how to boot a version of Linux from a USB flash drive, see the article Puppy Linux teaches an old dog new tricks.

3: Connect to a wireless network

If you have a wireless network, you can use the Wireless Network Setup Wizard in Windows XP or the Windows Connect Now (WCN) feature built into Vista to save wireless network configuration information to a USB flash drive. You can then use your drive to quickly and easily connect another computer or a WCN-compatible device, such as a router or printer, to your wireless network. To learn more about using the Wireless Network Setup Wizard, see the Help And Support Center, which is accessible from Windows XP's Start menu. To learn more about using the Windows Connect Now feature, see Windows Help And Support, which is accessible from Windows Vista's Start menu.

4: Create a password reset disk

A password reset disk can really come in handy if you forget the password to your user account on a Windows system that is not a part of a domain. If you find yourself in that situation, you can use the password reset disk to reset your password and quickly get back into your user account. In Windows Vista, you can use USB flash drive rather than a floppy disk as a password reset disk (Figure B). For details on how to do so, see the article Create a Vista password reset disk using a USB flash drive.

Figure B

You can use your USB flash drive as a password reset disk.

5: Boost performance

If you're running Windows Vista, you can use a USB flash drive to speed up your system with the ReadyBoost technology. ReadyBoost can use the storage space on a USB Flash drive as an additional memory cache to aid the memory cache on your hard disk. And because flash memory is more responsive than a hard disk, with its physical moving parts, the memory cache provided by ReadyBoost can significantly improve system responsiveness.

Using ReadyBoost is easy. You just insert your USB flash drive into your Vista system and follow the onscreen prompts to configure and use ReadyBoost. If you want more details, check out the article How SuperFetch and ReadyBoost work together.

6: Manage it

If all you really want to do with your USB flash drive is transport data, and you're running Windows XP, you can do so more efficiently with the Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (Figure C). Once you have installed this manager, you can easily copy files to and from your drive, back up and restore the entire flash drive to and from your hard disk, change the drive label, and even create an autorun.inf file to launch Drive Manager automatically when you plug in the drive. To learn more about and download the USB Flash Drive Manager visit the Microsoft TechNet Magazine site.

Figure C

The Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager provides you with a host of features, such as drive backup.

7: Use it as an MP3 player

Would you like to be listening to music when you're using a computer at the office, but you don't have an MP3 player? If so, you can use a USB flash drive as an MP3 player along with Windows Media Player and a set of headphones. Just copy your MP3 files to your USB flash drive, plug it into your computer, and direct Windows Media Player to build a library of the songs on your drive. You can use all of Windows Media Player's playback features, such as playlists and favorites, to easily customize your music listening experience. And best of all, you won't have to worry about running low on battery power.

8: Password-protect it

If you use a USB flash drive to transport sensitive data that you would prefer to protect from prying eyes, should you lose the drive, Rohos Mini Drive (Figure D) can safeguard that data. This security tool allows you to create a secret partition on the drive and then password-protect/encrypt that partition, thus protecting any documents you copy to that partition via the utility's file manager. You can download (and read a review of) Rohos Mini Drive at Download.com.

Figure D

Using Rohos Mini Drive, you can secure sensitive files on your USB flash drive.

9: Run a Web site from it

If you are a Web developer, you may be interested to know that with Server2Go, you can easily run a Web server that supports Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Perl right from a USB flash drive. You can use Server2Go right out of the box without any installation. It runs on all versions of Windows, supports most common browsers, and is completely free. To a developer, the benefits of having a portable Web server on a USB drive are numerous. For example, imagine being able to carry a live Web site demo into a sales pitch meeting. For more information about this package, visit the Server2Go site.

10: Lock your PC

Have you ever seen a movie in which a person in some secret government installation simply inserts and removes a card to log in and log out of a PC? If you thought that idea was cool, you'll definitely want to investigate Predator (Figure E). Once installed and configured, this little freeware utility will allow you to turn a USB flash drive into a key you can use to lock and unlock your computer.

Figure E

With Predator, you can use a USB flash drive as a key to lock and unlock your computer.

While the USB flash drive is connected to your computer, everything works as it normally would. Once you remove the USB flash drive, your computer is locked down — the keyboard and mouse are disabled and the screen darkens. To unlock your computer, you just plug in the USB flash drive and the computer will be unlocked and you can begin using it. To learn more about Predator, and/or to download it, visit the developer's Web site.

Nine Technology Jobs in Demand Right Now

Many of the nine jobs on this list are the same ones we see on just about every report about IT jobs, but it never hurts to be reminded of these facts if you are wondering what skills to think about.

The following list comes from job board Dice.com, who sees demand out there for the following. If you want to see this visually with graphics, see Baseline's slide show.

1. Security (with five or more years of experience and CISSP).
2. Virtualization (think VMware certification).
3. Java/J2EE (Sun certified doesn't hurt).
4. SAP (it just won't go away).
5. .NET (MCPD and Visual Studio experience)
6. DBAs (of all types)
7. Oracle
8. Project Managers
9. Sharepoint

The reason these jobs show up regularly is that they show long-term viability in technology environments. While an area like virtualization and Sharepoint are relatively newer skill sets, they make the list after a few years of solid growth in adoption and effectiveness.

It's always interesting to note how much the large vendors of IT--Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, VMware, etc.-- tend to dominate the certification and lists of these job boards. These certifications are being touted as fairly important pieces of entry lately, namely because the economy is allowing technology companies to pick from a larger pool of people, and the certifications along with work experience help establish easier levels of comparison and knowledge.

While a certification isn't going to guarantee you a job, it may actually help you get in the door easier right now.