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Various pics from when I was working there. more…

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Toronto Car Show more…

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Various more…

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Grandma’s 2004 Birthday Dinner at New World Palace. more…

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Various pics from PCW.
From 2005 Operating Season. more…

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Trip to the Toronto Zoo with some church people. more…

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Various snapshots taken while at The Scott Mission. more…

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ZOEgirl, Joy Williams, and Superchic[k] Concert at Canada Christian College. more…

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Various snapshots of my family and relatives. more…

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Chris Tomlin Concert at Queensway Cathedral. more…

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Road trip to Cedar Point with some pals.
With photos from Benny and Brian more…

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Pics from two night trip with two friends to Niagara Falls. Includes Maid of Mist, Journey Behind the Falls, White Water Walk, Butterfly Conservatory, etc… more…

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Various pics from PCW.
From 2004 Operating Season. more…

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Pics from annual church retreat. more…

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SmarterTools Inc., a leading developer of email, log analytics and help desk applications, is pleased to announce a partnership with SWsoft, the established leader in hosting automation and server virtualization software. SWsoft�s Plesk 7.5 for Windows server control panel software is considered the multi-platform industry standard in dedicated and shared single server environments. Plesk 7.5 for Windows will be integrated with the SmarterTools suite of products that combine an enterprise-level feature set with a focus on reliability and security… more…

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SmarterTools Inc., a leading developer of email, log analytics and help desk applications, is pleased to announce a partnership with Computerized Horizons, developers of Declude, one of the premier anti-spam and anti-virus tools to the general public. The partnership presents current customers of both companies with a mail solution that combines cutting edge spam and virus detection with an enterprise-level feature set that is focused on reliability and security…. more…

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The Microsoft .NET Framework is starting to prove that it can reduce the costs
of software development, while providing superior stability and functionality to
developers and administrators alike. Recent benchmarks have shown the .NET
environment to be almost comparable in application speed to more traditional
development environments such as C and C++, and many have demonstrated its speed
advantages over Java. These days, with computer systems priced so low, companies
are not focusing on development environment that will create the fastest
application. Rather, they are focusing on how quickly applications are developed
and released to the general public. With the recent introduction of the Windows
2003 operating system, Microsoft further increases the performance gains and
benefits for the users of .NET and gives customers even greater reasons to move
to the .NET environment… more…

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SmarterTools Inc. is pleased to announce version 1.5 of their SmarterMail mail
server. Built as an alternative to other, higher priced mail server products,
SmarterMail 1.5 will appeal to organizations of any size, from single users and
small businesses needing a simple, yet powerful mail solution, to major
enterprises and full fledged web hosting companies needing to support thousands
of users. SmarterMail offers unmatched stability, unparalleled speed and
capacity per server, complete spam protection, integrated virus protection, and
much more, all for a fraction of the cost of competing products… more…

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SmarterTools Inc., a leading application developer for Microsoft Windows based
applications, quietly entered the web analytics and log analysis market earlier
this year. With the latest release of versions 2.5 of both SmarterStats
Enterprise and Professional Editions, SmarterTools is building a reputation for
providing feature-rich applications that meet the needs of a wide variety of end
users, both individuals and enterprises-level organizations alike. SmarterStats
Enterprise appeals to larger organizations, especially large web hosts, due to
its distributed architecture and value-added options while SmarterStats
Professional appeals to single users and smaller companies thanks to its rich
feature set and affordable licensing structure… more…

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SmarterTools Inc. , an Arizona-based software development company, introduces
SmarterStats Enterprise Edition 1.0, an enterprise level web server log analysis
suite. In addition, SmarterTools Inc. lands their first major web hosting
partnership by becoming the sole web analytics provider for CrystalTech Web
Hosting Inc, the 8th largest Windows-only web host serving over 35,000 domains.
SmarterStats Enterprise Edition beat other commonly known, web analytics
providers like NetIQ, Urchin and DeepMetrix to secure CrystalTech’s
business… more…

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SmarterTools Inc. is happy to announce their first Premier
Partnership: CrystalTech Web Hosting Inc. CrystalTech, which was noted by
Netcraft, an independent internet consultancy based in the United Kingdom, as
the fourth largest, privately held Windows based hosting company in the world,
is the perfect partner for SmarterTools Inc. as both companies specialize in
applications based on the Windows platform… more…

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SmarterTools Inc., a Phoenix-based software development company specializing in
building tools suited for the Microsoft Windows environment, today announced a
description of, and a release date for, one of the five product lines currently
in development… more…

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Not everything in the photo biz is in “chaos,” in fact there are now billions of new opportunities that demand more 4×6 photographic prints.
With today’s new Kodak high-speed photo scanners, generations of family photos representing hundreds of billions of archived snapshots - saved in shoe boxes - can instantly be scanned and saved on CDs.
Consumers are ordering reprints, uploads to share online and index prints from pictures they haven’t seen in decades.
One example of how the photo industry is promoting these new scanners is: ShoeboxReprints.com
Mitch Goldstone
President & CEO
30minphotos.com - ShoeboxReprints.com
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When will it began to make sense to the tech sector that cellular camera phones for home and business property security alarms is the best idea since sliced bread? The ROC by 2010 has the potential to hit $50 billion USD.
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Outstanding Questions for Industry Analysts…
Five questions everyone should be asking of the analyst community…
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[…] Forbes cites the drawing power of Howard Stern among the reasons for Sirius’ earlier breakeven. […]
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What is the real wireless research commmiting to in the future of our countries alliance with other countries?
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Salut,
the IDC figure appears quite low. It suggests that US offshore spending in 2004 has been only $7.5 billion, while other sources put the size of the global IT-offshoring market much higher. Gartner says that the market will reach $50 billion by 2007 of which - in my view - the US should have a substantial share. Does anybody know whether the IDC figures include captive offshoring and onshore delivery?
cheers
thomas
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With the importance of Email increasing the demand for more features, flexiblity, and security are also increasing.
At this very moment I am at the center of an Email “Fire Storm” going on at one of my customer accounts with them dumping the old provider.
This research report is both an eye opener and a wakeup call with ramifications affecting Information Technology areas such as storage, security, investment and many others.
With Email today growing increasingly “Mission Critical” Services that offer features like “WebMail”,
File Sharing and Strong Security (Additional Virus, Spyware, Spam, 24/7 Toll Free Tech Support and a Solid Uptime Record)will definately have the advantage.
Henry L. Tillman
(President)
Henry L. Tillman (ITEC)
Information Technology Expert Consultants
A Web Management & Internet Consulting Firm
Chicago IL.
www.hltillman.com
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Geac is a big question mark with the recent acquisition. What will ultimately happen to MPC? Any company evaluating planning, budgeting, and reporting solutions need to consider other leading vendors on theirs shortlists. In looking at the Gartner Magic Quadrant analysis, these would include the staples Cognos and Hyperion, as well as leading niche vendors like OutlookSoft, which is one of the more visionary and established players in the space.
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Perhaps a catch-all for some of the points in the list would be to examine social network tools, not just instant messaging either!
I would recommend studying the emergence and acceptance of open-systems tools being deployed inside the organisation such as the SocialText/DrKW wiki initiative, internal blogging at Microsoft and IBM’s podcasting.
Organisations are springing up everywhere to teach you how but it’s really rather simple - and as managers / co-workers begin to use RSS internally to publish and keep track of developments in other business areas the faults inherent with siloed cultures begin to diminish rapidly.
HTH
Ed.
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rolling up an offshore company
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It is obvious none of the people involved in those predictions has every worked for a long time as a programmer, or they were just bad programmers.
Global Sourcing:
Sure global sourcing can give you cheap software development, but you will have to be producing a huge project and have lots of money to do it. No little company wants to spend 5 hours on the phone (VoIP or not) or emailing to some guy in a non-english speaking country who only understand half of what he is saying. So unless the company sends someone over there it will never be easy. MS can do it because they have money and staff, but no way a mid to small size company would. Smaller companies also need more control and quicker turn around which is impossible when you have someone in a different time zone to do it. Imagine you need a small change that would take 5 minutes but you have to tell the customer “we can’t do it because the developers in India are still in bed.”
Automation:
MS are trying to make software development easier. If you want a program that opens a database, displays the info, updates then saves it then sure, it is ok. But if you need just a tiny bit more then there is no way an automated system could produce the result you need. Sure monitoring, storage and technical support can be automated, but when something goes wrong, who will they call??
The consumerisation of IT:
Is that even are real word?
People already hate systems that are complicated, what makes you think that IT people will make systems complicated now or in the future? One of the main focuses of development is User Interface. Just because things will be on PDA’s and Mobile Phones does not mean they will all of a sudden become hugely complicated, in fact they will be less complicated. If you think it is complicated, you should see what it could be like if the main focus was speed or short development time.
Departments to run software? What are they on about? Auto-update is all the rage.
The only department is help desk, wish they says with automation will become great. They should stop contradicting himself.
Business restructuring:
Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, consolidations, layoffs, outsourcing, financial rebuilding, bankruptcies, all that stuff has been going on from when business began. Just because technology is changing rapidly does not mean IT as a career will die. For every merger, for every layoff, for every outsource someone might loose a job, but someone else will get a job.
The people loosing the jobs are the weak, useless, unskilled wanna-be IT people. People with real skill, real knowledge will always survive.
Weaken employee commitment? Do IT people have commitment now? haha, that is funny.
To finalize, IT people are too smart to let themselves loose their income, and the general public are too uneducated to do IT work themselves. I have heard so many times an IT person straight lie about something just because they can.
“Oh you want it to beep when it saves, you will need to get someone to interact the sound interface systems to bond with the memory so that it can monitor any request from the system that something multimedia is trying to run. That will be $100/hour thanks.”
Ok, that is enough. Back to work. I am cutting and pasting Japanese characters into as website, because no one else here knows or has the time to open the ASP.NET project in Visual Studio. Yes, and getting paid for it. Do I look scared? hahahahaha
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It is rather interesting to note that although the world wide BPO market is just under US$ 400 billion ($382.5 billion in 2004 according to the article), the largest third party BPO provider of the world Convergys is only just about US$ 2 billion, which is not even 0.5% of the market.
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Yep I was involved in a car accident which has smashed up the front end of my car. I suppose this makes it my fault

The fateful day 10th November 2005, on Great North Road (A1000). My poor car, which I have had for approximately 7 months may well be written off due to this accident, that will be a real upset for me. I love this car. I am waiting to hear from the body shop to let me know if
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By far the best mortgage service I have ever used. If you are looking for help in finding the right mortgage or remortgage at the very best rates to suit your needs then this is the place to go.
I know this sounds like an ad, but I have to be honest this Mortgage Broker is the most helpful person I have ever spoken to.

http://www.mortgageman.co.uk/

RegardsClaud
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Claud’s MSN Space

Yes yes yes. I know I have blogs coming out of my ears. So here is another one… LOL
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Welcome to my new motor and road friend… Peugeot 406 HDi 2.0 Turbo Diesel Injection… Lets hope you serve me as well as my trusty Laguna did… Many miles to come, and much driving to be done. I seem to be on a French car trip over the past few years. Italy here we come.. I hope!!!
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Paying homage to my Renault Laguna which was part-exchanged on Sat 16th April 2005. We’ve been a long way together, to the South of Italy and back, thousands of miles travelled around the UK… Farewell Renault Laguna Alize 16v 1.6i. You have served me well.
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Jazz trumpet player, very cool snippets from his live show. These are streamed in MediaPlayer or Real Video format.

Features Homepage: “Nils Petter”
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Homage to the Great Bruce Lee. Probably one of the best martial artists in the world. And definately the most famous. “Be like water, water can take any form, water can penetrate hard stone… Be like water.” Or something along those lines.

Link goes to: The Bruce & Brandon Lee Association’s Official Website

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Found this great site for 80’s nostalgia. It has listings and write-ups on some of the best 80’s shows on TV in the Classic TV section. I thought I would share that with you all!

80sNostalgia.com - Classic TV

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This is a photo that I took at Forty Hall, Forty Hill, in Enfield. Its not funny, but it is rather nice. Taken on a low res cheap digital camera. I just love the fact that the dark grey sky really makes the rainbow show up a treat.

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Sprint Nextel Corp. recently launched a
professional services subsidiary focused on mobility applications, including
wireless voice and data technologies.

The announcement of Sprint Enterprise Mobility Inc.
is a clear sign of the growth in voice and data applications for large business
users, as well as the need for a general contractor that companies can hire to
oversee integration efforts.

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The preliminary results of Janco’s January 2006 IT
Salary Survey shows that 93% of IT professionals have some form of company paid
health insurance. Other benefits that over 50% of these same individuals receive
are: life insurance (78%), 401K (71%), disability insurance - beyond mandated
requirements (58%), flexible hours and/or schedule (56%), personal performance
bonus (54%), and trips for planning and training (50%). Go to http://www.ejobdescription.com/SalaryBenefit.htm. more…

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Add “employee retention” to the list of things Google
appears to be doing right. The company prides itself on managing its workers
according to the principles of business guru Peter Drucker, who advised
companies to “strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers’ way.”
This list of 10 management practices, penned by CEO Eric Schmidt and Google
consultant Hal Varian, a professor at Berkeley, range from the high-tech (online
“dashboards” that provide up-to-the-minute status reports for every project) to
the low-tech (having workers work in close proximity to each other to facilitate
collaboration ) to those that will inspire envy (perks including first-class
dining facilities, massage rooms and car washes) to digs at competitors (”nobody
throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other
well-known technology companies”).

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will add 250 new IT jobs
during the next year, filling the majority of the positions with new college
graduates rather than experienced IT veterans. The retail giant also plans to
promote about 25% of the IT personnel already on board.

The WalMart CIO said that they like the idea of
bringing in strong, young minds. Most of the company’s current IT employees as
well as the new hires work out of Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters,
where salaries and housing costs are lower than in other parts of the country.
Wal-Mart also wants to retain centralized control over
IT.

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Twelve percent of consumers have received notices
of personal data theft, 20 percent of online customers close their accounts with
online merchants if their personal information is stolen, and 40 percent
consider taking their business to a competitor under these circumstances,
according to a Ponemon Institute study. Another Ponemon study estimates the
average cost of a data breach at $14 million, including internal investigations,
legal counsel, notification and call center costs, public relations, discounts,
lost productivity and lost customers. Twenty-one U.S. states have laws requiring
some sort of notification when data breaches occur. more…

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Variety is not only the spice of life; it may
offer a competitive advantage. In an increasingly diverse and complex business
world. CIOs and other managers must learn to value diversity. Employees with
different characteristics, experiences and viewpoints will offer varied insights
that companies can use to gain an edge. Janco suggests a five-stage plan:
Implement an assessment to help identify potential snags to a diversity effort;
align the diversity strategy with business and IT strategies; determine the
right approach for implementation; integrate diversity approaches with HR
practices; and get buy-in from senior management. more…

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Managing IT costs and the
service delivery process was just made easier with the release of The Metrics,
IT Service Management and Service Level Agreement bundle. < ?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/>

Delivering quality IT
Service and measuring IT’s performance is a difficult and time consuming
exercise. Many enterprises believe that they do not have the time, money, or
resources to initiate and monitor the processes necessary to do this. However,
enterprises cannot determine how much something is worth unless its value can be
quantified. It is a necessity of the new economy that every business unit needs
to demonstrate its worth while meeting necessary service
objectives.

An annual update service is
available.

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Deciding Whether to Fire

• The person being fired should never be surprised
  by what’s happening to him.

• The person being fired had to have been given
  explicit warnings prior to being fired.

• The person being fired had to have been advised of
  specific steps he needed to take to keep his job.

• The person being fired had to have been offered
  support to help him learn what he needed to learn to keep his job.

• The person being fired had to have been given a
  reasonable period of time to comply with your expectations. The nature of the
  employee’s response to the offer of help could significantly expand or
  contract what’s considered a reasonable period of time.

• Illegal behavior or actions opening the company to
  significant legal risk could nullify all the other rules. If someone was
  involved in illegal activities related to work or actions that could be
  considered sexual harassment, he wouldn’t deserve the same degree of help and
  warnings that others get.

See the IT Hiring Resource
Kit

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The job market for city CIOs is heating up, but the
required skills reach far beyond technology. To sell their governments and the
public on new ideas like wireless broadband, municipal CIOs also need sharp
communication skills and political know-how.

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In Karraker v. Rent-A-Center, Inc, three brothers required to take
the MMPI in order to be considered for promotion sued their employer, contending
that the test violated the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /> w:st="on">ADAs prohibition against medical inquiries that
tend to screen out persons with disabilities.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The District Court ruled in favor of the employer, holding that the
purpose of the test was to discern personality traits, and not to uncover mental
disorders. However, the Court of Appeals disagreed, stating that the practical
effect of the MMPI is similar no matter how the test is used or scored - that
is, whether or not Rent-A-Center used the test to weed out applicants with
certain disorders, its use of the MMPI likely had the effect of excluding
employees with disorders from promotions. Because it is designed, at least in
part, to reveal mental illness and has the effect of hurting the employment
prospects of one with a mental disability, we think the MMPI is best categorized
as a medical examination.

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align=center>Going to work for
new company

style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10px">When going to work for a new company
then there are some financial considerations that have to be taken into
account.  First and foremost assume the job will only last a year and that
you will need to look for another position while you are out of work. 

style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10px">Go to http://www.ejobdescription.com/EmploymentContract.htm

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The IT Hiring Resource Kit
combines the 2005 Salary Survey and detail jobdescriptions as a bundle that
every Information Technology and Human Resource function need to
have. 

Each of the job descriptions is at least 3 pages
long and has been updated to meet the requirements of HIPPA and Sarbanes Oxley.
The kit comes in three versions.  Detail infmation can be found at information
page.

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Protecting Personal,
Confidential and Sensitive Data is Easier

Janco has just released another in
its series of Sarbanes-Oxley Tools, the Sensitive Information Policy.  This
new tool is a detailed 15 page policy that directly addresses the protection of
personal data, confidential data and enterprise sensitive information.  A
full description can be found on the Information Technology Productivity Center
(ITPC) web site ( href="http://www.itproductivity.org/sensitive.htm">http://www.itproductivity.org/sensitive.htm). 

The policy
contains a definition of standards and actions to implement them for secure
networks.  In addition it has guidelines for monitoring and testing
networks and business record retention including email. 

Victor
Janulaitis, Janco’s CEO said, “Almost every day there is a story in the media
about how personal data or business sensitive information is lost, improperly
disclosed, or stolen. The Sensitive Information Policy is something that gives
every enterprise a set of rules that are easy to implement and follow.” In
adding he said, “The Sensitive Information Policy addresses all of the
Sarbanes-Oxley and California Personal Data requirements.  This policy
applies to the entire enterprise, its vendors, its suppliers (including
outsourcers) and co-location providers and facilities regardless of the methods
used to store and retrieve sensitive information (e.g. online processing,
outsourced to a third party, Internet, Intranet or swipe
terminals).”

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Salary data for IT Executives, Middle Manager and Staff as of June 2005 has
been released by Janco Associates.  Go to www.ejobdescripton.com/salary.htm to see a free summary of the
survey.