Your blog is your living resume

I’ve just been reading 10 Essential Steps to Take BEFORE You’re Laid Off from the Get Rich Slowly blog and even though all the points are very valid the one that struck me was:

 

Start a blog that contains at least 50% professional material. If you don’t already have a blog, stop reading this one and go start one right this minute. It’s essential. Your blog is your living resume. It shows how you think. It shows how you write. It shows what’s important to you. While it is fine to blog about personal topics, devote half of your posts to professional content. What is that you do by trade? Mentor us through your blog. We employers love hiring mentors — they raise everybody’s performance.

I been talking to a few people lately who are changing positions both by choice and not by choice and one of the things I tell them is that they should start a blog. Recently, someone else asked me how to ‘break into’ the IT field, my answer again was to blog.

 

If I’m an employer and you show me your blog and it is at least 50% professional it goes a long way in boosting your stocks with me. Why? Firstly, you’ve taken the time to create and maintain a blog (that’s why regular entries are critical). Next, it shows me you are keeping up with the times and utilizing social networking. Next, it helps you stand above your peers who couldn’t be bothered blogging. It also shows that you have the confidence to promote your thoughts, musings, discoveries, etc for free. Only the paranoid try and hold every piece of information they come across. It also indicates to me that you are a good communicator and you have the ability to work with the written word. And that’s just for a start.

 

There’s no way that you could ever get that across in a resume. A blog is a far better indicator to me of your skills, personality and dedication. If you do a blog then you need to ensure it remains professional and thus if you want to also do a personal blog I’d recommend you simply create a separate one for those socially embarrassing photos. Because, done incorrectly a blog can sink your prospects as quickly as a good blog can boost them.

 

My recommendations if you don’t blog? Create a professional blog. Ensure that you update it regularly. Remember that anything that goes in here you want a potential employer to see. Include your own ideas, comments and feedback rather than just regurgitating information. Remember a blog is about your take on the information not simply you reporting it. It may seem awkward at first but if you keep at it you’ll improve. Practice makes perfect.

 

So there is really no excuse not to blog. Blogging sites are free, tools to promote your blog are free as are tool to monitor your blog so money is never going to be an issue when it comes to blogging. It simply comes down to your time on a regular basis because nothing looks worse than a blog that never gets updated (even worse than a web site that also never does). It doesn’t take much, just a few minutes here and there. Who knows, after a while you may even come to enjoy it. You may even find other people enjoy reading it as well. Utilize the power of social networking to your benefit.

 

If you want to add value to yourself professionally, use a blog to demonstrate to the world why you know your stuff. A blog is so much more than a CV because it it living.

New version of SharePoint will be 64 bit only

In light of other recent Windows upgrades (i.e. SBS2008) that are 64 bit only, the new version of SharePoint, when it becomes, available will also only be 64 bit. This will basically mean it will only run on Windows Server 2008 or better.

 

The reason I mention this is because if you are planning to build a SharePoint solution now it is probably a very good idea to consider a 64 bit environment. Windows SharePoint Services is already available in a 64 bit version so you could install it today and be prepared for when the new version become available.

 

It is my understanding that Service Pack 2 for the existing version of SharePoint v3.0 will be available in the first half of the 2009. However, you may want to consider making the move to a 64 bit platform today rather than when the new version of SharePoint is released.

Skydrive upgrade

I went to my Skydrive today and look

 

image_2_21560613

 

I’ve now got 25GB of space I can use to store stuff. Did I do anything? No. Was the system down while more space was added? No. All this happened behind the scenes without me even knowing. Suddenly, as a customer, I’ve gotten more resources and functionality for no additional cost. Apart from all that it’s free anyway and not doubt going to continually increase in size.

 

I’d like to also say that this goes a long way to illustrating my point about how good cloud computing is. If I’d tried to add more space on-site I would need to have bought media, installed it, formatted it and so. However, overnight, bamm, I’ve been upgraded. The same principle can be applied to most services that are going to be available from the cloud.

 

Don’t think this is threat to the traditional on-site model of computing? Take a step back and look at it from a customers perspective. I’ve suddenly gotten more without any disruption to my operations. As a customer, how is this not enticing for me?

Does anyone out there understand this stuff?

I received the following email forwarded from a contact recently.

 Now, what I find interesting is the simple fact that they must have in turn received this from one of their contacts but they chose to believe it to be true immediately. It certainly doesn’t appear that the question was asked to whether this was legitimate before it was forwarded to me. If someone did that to them in the street they certainly think twice before accepting anything. Why doesn’t the same apply with technology? To those that know there is plenty to give away the fact that it is indeed a hoax.

The problem this highlights is simply how easy it is to bypass most security technology by convincing a user to take steps to circumvent security. This is how most security issues spread, by people believing carte blanch that what they have received is legitimate. I’m afraid that no technology is going to ever be able to mitigate the threat users pose to their own systems. The only method is training and the attitude to trust nothing from the Internet with verifying it.

When most employees go to work in a business they are not taught how to use emails are they? They are likewise not taught how to use the Internet and clearly they are also not taught how to search as the following from Google illustrates.

Now, apparently these are the top ten terms used in Google searches according to Google (yet to see this posted on the web by Google – maybe soon):

  • Games
  • Sydney
  • YouTube
  • MySpace
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • eBay
  • My
  • Weather
  • Hotmail
    Ahhh, hang on. Why are people typing Google into Google search? It sorta indicates to me that people don’t know what they are doing, just like in the following video clip.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oCHxB8d20s
    Don’t forget typing Google into Google is the sixth most popular search term. Now it is my understanding that these words are the top ten single words searched for on Google. Hello. Doesn’t that sort of tell you that people don’t really know how to use search engines? Look at the other words as well, many are domains (i.e. Hotmail, YouTube, Facebook, etc). What’s going on here. How can we have had the web for all these years and yet so many people don’t seem to even understand the basics!

    We spend so much of our time encapsulating our lives with technology when in reality most people have very little idea about it all. In our jobs we are simply expected to know how to use emails, the web, office applications etc but are never taught. So how are we going to use them? Via the lowest common denominator. We are afraid and too time poor to try and learn any features or configurations that would really help. Our employers take for granted that employees know how to use all the technology and yet employees, without guidance and training, are the best threats to circumvented security that any organization faces. Also think about the time people waste struggling to use technology tools they have only learned by trial and error. Maybe this in another reason people haven’t adopted Vista – to much change.

    The answer is not more technology it is understanding how to use the technology better.

    • Connecting to local drives in Virtual PC

    When you run up a Microsoft Virtual PC chances are you are going to want to copy files from the host system on which the Virtual PC is running to the actual Virtual PC. This is possible by simply going into the settings for that Virtual PC and selecting the Shared Folders option as shown below:

     

    image_2_764C0981

     

    If you then select the Shared Folder button over on the right you are able to select a local directory which can be mapped a drive letter on the Virtual PC. Perfect for copying files up and down.

     

    It is not possible to use this option to connect a Virtual PC drive to a network mapped drive you may have on the local machine. It only works with drives that are local to the host machine on which Virtual PC is running.

    Get the picture?

    Here’s an interesting graph from Google by way of David Schrag’s blog.

    The blue line that is trending down are Google searches for “computer consulting”. The read line at the right are Google searches for “cloud computing”.

    With things like Microsoft Azure coming the red line is only going to be rising up and up, while the traditional blue line is going to keep going south.

    Even if you have reservations about cloud computing as a viable solution, clearly more and more people want to know about it. Doesn’t it make sense to learn about opportunities (red line – cloud computing) rather than traditional (blue line – computer consulting) contracting markets? Because that’s were customers are going to be prepared to pay money. With the economic challenges ahead it certainly makes sense to me to move towards opportunities where customers ‘want’ to spend money (red line – cloud computing) rather than ‘having’ to spend money (blue line – computer consulting).

    Wireless networking course starts on Thursday

    My Wireless Networking course will run this Thursday at Macquarie Community College at Carlingford. If you are interested in learning about wireless technology and how to make it work then you should get plenty of value from what’s on offer.

     

    If you are interested in enrolling call the college on 02-8845 8888 or check the following web page for more details:

     

    http://www.macquarie.nsw.edu.au/index.php?action=course&course_action=detail&code=408M299

     

    This will be my last technology course for 2008 and I’d like to thank anyone who has attended my courses throughout the year, I hope they provided value. I have proposed a range of new courses for 2009 as well as my existing ones on Networking Basics, Networking with Small Business Server and Computer Security. If the new courses get a start then I’ll post information about their content here.

     

    Once again, to all who attended Merry Christmas and I hope to see you again in the New Year.