The Cost of Doing Nothing

Author Archive for Della Wyler – Page 9

The Cost of Doing Nothing

When it comes to education, the quote that most often comes to mind is, “You either pay for an education now or later.” The quote is very powerful since it is saying that the majority of the working years of your life will be directly impacted by your credentials. Your hourly income will be represented in what you know and how relevant your knowledge applies to current market demand.

Beware the Cost of Doing Nothing with Your Tech Career

With that in mind, IT jobs continue to be of utmost importance to your financial future and success. If you pick up the business section, you read a lot of stories about student debt that buries younger professionals entering the workforce. This is especially exacerbated by education that does not fit current demand.

However, Microsoft training and certifications through TechSherpas reflect a very specific return on investment (ROI) versus some college degrees which provide only hope for future success.

There’s a reason that Bill Gates is one of the richest people on the planet. There are about 1.5 billion (that’s a “b”) Windows users in the world today. Suffice to say that supporting that operating system will be around for your lifetime.

Having the confidence to invest your time and money in Microsoft training and certifications is worthwhile. The difference between having and not having a certification can be compared to a bookkeeper versus a CPA. Both might handle your books well, but more often than not, you would want somebody who has gone through the credentialing to become a certified public accountant when you’re going up against an IRS audit.

TechSherpas boot camp style is fun, fast and laser-focused. Meaningful training with experts will quickly bring you up to speed on what you need to know. Other programs may teach you random IT information that may or may not be relevant to most employers. However, TechSherpas 365’ss Microsoft training and certification are specific and transferable from job to job. You don’t want to be that guy lacking credentials who’s just “pretty good with Windows.”

Businesses will invest in you when you have your certification. As they utilize Microsoft products within their business environments, they will require the direct support and direction of an IT professional. Elevate yourself in your career for a lifetime of success.

Having a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certification validates you as an IT professional with developer technical expertise. Investing in yourself and this certification is one of the most important decisions you will ever make as an IT professional.

Sources:

https://techsherpas.com/these-jobs-are-the-reason-you-want-to-learn-technical-skills/

Four Steps to Building an Amazing Website

When is the last time you looked at your website? Take an honest look at all of your pages. You might be surprised to find a lot of old junk, irrelevant stuff and a confusing array of words that were put there for so-called SEO purposes.  Here are some steps to help you build an amazing website.

Four Basic Steps to Help You Build an Amazing Website

Step One:  Create Trust

Websites should create trust. Does everything on your website do that? Is it clear what your value proposition is? Who is behind the business? Is it a glossy website that looks like a template? Does your website cause excitement and interest in a product or service, or does it put you to sleep?

If you think you’re an SEO queen or king think again, Google algorithms are way smarter than you are and are constantly changing. So why not be real with your website. What product or service are you really excellent at?

Step Two:  Tell a Story

Perhaps your website isn’t all that bad and just needs some tweaks here and there. However, sometimes you might find that by the time you start cleaning up your site it needs a total revamp.

Your website is your public face. You spend way too much time money and effort on your business to have your website look like a hand-me-down. It needs to have fresh, relevant and precise content that communicates your message to your customers. After all, your prospects judge your website’s credibility based on its design.

Step Three:  Educate Your Audience

If you spend money on Google AdWords, LinkedIn ads and other sources of marketing, you want to make sure that when your prospects get to your website that your message is clear and crisp. But it also needs to be compelling, otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

Step Four:  Step Up Your Design

Hire a professional web designer if you don’t have the time to mess with it. After all, you’re in the business of business, not website design.  Just make sure you spend the money where it counts.

Website design can seem complicated, but with these steps, you’re on your way to a basic plan for an excellent site!

Sources:

https://www.thebalance.com/create-a-successful-website-in-10-easy-steps-2315329

Technology is Awesome

When it comes to keeping up with the latest technology, many become overwhelmed. Most people are too busy to spend the time to evaluate new applications and software. The biggest tip to learn new technology is to take baby steps. Some evaluate new technology every six months, others more frequently. They want to know what’s out there that can make their lives better, more efficient, educational or just fun.

Learn New Technology, Because Technology is Awesome!

The perception of technology can vary with different generations but most agree it makes our lives better. To that end, I suggest focusing on what technology will most impact your life in a positive way. For some it maybe business-related such as contact relationship management (CRM) applications that promote shared calendaring, tracking of emails and documents as well as the basic contact information tracking.

For others, technology may be more pragmatic such as the huge surge of downloads during Hurricane Irma of Zello Walkie-Talkie, a two-way radio phone communication. This would allow critical communication between family members and friends if the cell towers went down but Internet connectivity was still available.

Entertainment is a big draw for technology. For example, Spotify allows fairly unlimited music listening entertainment for about $9.00 per month. Moreover, this app allows excellent organization and sharing of your music lists, particularly fun if your friends enjoy music as well. Ever get stuck in traffic? Sure, that’s 100 percent affirmative for anyone living on the planet. Then you might download Waze to give you a heads up on exactly when the traffic clears, if there’s any road hazards, accidents, police with radar guns, you know very helpful information.

If you’re on the brainier side of things, you may like Pocket, previously known as Read It Later, an application and service for managing a reading list of articles from the Internet. If you are a creative type, you may like Snapseed, a photo editing application that enables users to enhance photos and apply digital filters. Type A people may love Wunderlist, a cloud-based task management application allowing users to manage their stuff from any device including their smartwatch. This app might be used in conjunction with Evernote, an app designed for notetaking, organization and archiving which can be used personally or as an office intranet.

In the end, you can choose to embrace technology or ignore it. You’re in charge of your electronic world, so pick and choose what works best for you. You might be surprised how technology, when used on your terms, can positively impact your life. Stay curious!

 

Hackers Always Hack: A Career in IT Security

When it comes to knowing which career to go into in our fast-paced world, consider the growing field of IT security. Demand is at an all-time high to protect your financial assets, health records, and other private documents.

Planning A Lucrative Career In IT Security

One need look no further than the Equifax data breach of 143 million Americans, which pales at the 3 billion accounts hacked at Yahoo. However, the Equifax breach was quite startling since the breach was from one of the nation’s largest credit reporting agencies. An organization of this caliber should have a solid security infrastructure in place. Finding out that that’s not really the case makes consumers nervous. It leads you to believe that there must be numerous other security weaknesses throughout our economy.

Plan Your Successful Future

As a result, a career in IT security will be in strong demand into the foreseeable future. Hackers always hack, which translates into job security for the IT professional. Data experts are confident that the demand for this skill will last a lifetime as it protects (like in the Equifax breach) people’s names, Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, credit card numbers, and other personal information.

Achieve Financial Success In IT Security

Private and public entities, including the military, will pay top dollar for skilled IT professionals who truly can keep the organization safe. The cost to keep business data safe is paramount to every business.

Ransomware is malicious software from cryptovirology that can publish others’ data or block access to it unless a ransom is paid with no guarantee that the data will be unlocked. Even saying the word ransomware frightens any c-level executive, as it can bring a business to its knees. IT security in the military has obvious life and safety repercussions in a real sense.

The Future Of IT Security

Businesses that don’t invest in IT professionals will run into trouble at some point. The question is when. Viruses come in many forms including boot sector, direct action, polymorphic, multipartite, file infector, web scripting, and browser hijackers. All it takes is one significant outage to significantly impact the business bottom line.

A Solid Investment In Your Future

Russia’s potential influence on our recent presidential election is another example of the need for additional IT security personnel. As long as there are bad people willing to use their keyboard for malice, jobs for IT security professionals are recession proof. Sadly, it seems that the bad apples are on a global scale, providing confidence that a career in IT security is a solid investment.

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurencebradford/2017/02/27/how-to-start-a-lucrative-career-in-cybersecurity/#4b662391066d

Citrix Xen is Zen for IT Administrators

If your company is looking for a complete desktop solution and virtual app to provide employees the flexibility to work from anywhere, then Citrix Xen training is the answer.

Citrix Xen Training Will Make Your Company Limitless

How It Helps Your Company Stay Mobile And Safe

Citrix Xen is a server virtualization platform based on the Xen hypervisor to facilitate the hosting, management and deployment of virtual machines.

The easy to deploy platform delivers Windows, web, Linux and SaaS applications or full virtual desktops.

Why Management And Remote Access Users Love It

C-level executives love that the products provide secure remote access to employees while at the same time reducing IT costs.

What Can Citrix Xen Do For You?

Citrix Studio allows IT pros to set up XenApp or XenDesktop environments that create desktops and provides controls to assign desktops to users.

Citrix Director is a powerful tool to manage XenApp and XenDesktop environments. As an IT professional, it’s key to get ahead of any issues, facilitating troubleshooting while at the same time performing support tasks for end users.

Citrix Xen products allow your IT staff to manage a wide array of devices and platforms from any location while at the same time providing a “wow” user experience.

The Future: Flexibility To Work Securely From Anywhere

Microsoft’s Skype for Business is gaining market share with over 100 million users utilizing the service for communication for work. However, some IT professionals warn that without proper design optimization, virtual app and desktop users may not find Microsoft’s Skype to have all the functionality they need to meet today’s challenging demands.

With this in mind, Citrix utilizes HDX RealTime Optimization Pack (developed with and endorsed by Microsoft) with XenApp and XenDesktop which allows Skype for Business as a virtualized application or virtual desktop, often with the same performance as a local install.

Secure Your Business On Any Device

Deployment of Citrix XenApp provides security because the applications aren’t on the endpoint so there’s no data at risk if a device is lost or stolen. The product also supports remote and mobile workers which allows IT professionals to centrally manage applications. The old way had IT reconfiguring and redeploying applications to each new PC and updated boxes. With Citrix XenApp, the PC refreshes and operating system upgrades are handled so users can continue to access their applications.

The product comes in more than one flavor. These include a tier of different features and prices including Citrix XenApp Fundamentals, XenApp Advanced, XenApp Enterprise, and XenApp Platinum.

Source: https://www.citrix.com

What Will the IT Industry Look Like in 20 Years?

Twenty years ago, the internet was not widely used, mobile phones were as big as walkie-talkies and no one had ever heard of e-commerce. In that amount of time, people have managed to change the world drastically. If you’re missing a loved one, you can call them anytime through your mobile phone. There’s no need to look for a phone attached to a cord. If you need help with your homework or you want to figure out how to fix your sink, you can just look it up on the internet.  There are so many advancements in technology that have changed our lives over the years.

 Advancements in Technology Will Look Like This in 20 Years

Looking for a date? There are multiple apps for you to choose from. Wondering where to take your date? There are an endless array of how-to guides online and corresponding reviews of restaurants and experiences you can try. The world is an easier and better place to live in because of information technology.

Have you ever thought about what it would look like another 20 years from now? Would we still have mobile phones? What would e-commence be like? Would IT jobs still be the same? To give you a glimpse into the future of IT, here are some predictions that experts think will come true in the next 20 years.

Big Data will take over the world.

In the span of a decade, big data has become indispensable to companies worldwide. It tells them everything from the best marketing approach to reach more customers and convert their curiosity into sales to how they can streamline their supply chain. There is so much use for this technology, and in the next 20 years, the world will see it fully integrated into all our systems.

Surveillance will be unstoppable.

As much as people hate to admit it, the world is becoming easier to monitor. Give it two more decades and it will become inevitable. With the combination of cameras, sensors, wireless communication satellites and GPS, there will be no untraceable location, person or event. Eventually, we will be tracking ourselves, each other, governments and even corporations.

Automation is the way to go.

Today, much of what’s automated are blue collar, repetitive jobs that clearly robots can do so much faster and more efficiently. Eventually, companies will look to robots and automation for even the more difficult functions in the business, such as marketing, finance and IT. Not only will this reduce their bottom line expenses, it also expedites tasks and ensures high-quality performance.

What do you predict for technology in the next 20 years?  Let us know in the comments below!

Sources:

https://fortune.com/2013/04/26/the-great-surveillance-boom/

Great Career Sites to Find Your Perfect Job

Finding a job in modern times is usually done through the internet- especially if you’re looking for a career in technology.  If you’re wondering where the right place to look is, these sites are a great resource for finding a career.

Check These Sites to Pursue a Career in Technology

Check out these great career sites to find your perfect job, no matter what stage of your career you’re in.

Indeed.com

Indeed is one of the top job sites available at this time.  This leading job site posts millions of jobs, and pulls from a variety of resources, including free listing, other job sites, newspaper listings, and more.  It is also an excellent research site.  You can easily find out average salaries and see if the positions you apply for compare.  You can research jobs and career paths to find out education requirements and job duties so that you can start pursuing your dream job in a well-informed and strategic manner.  This is a wealth of information and resources you will definitely want to explore.

Dice.com

Dice.com is the leading job site geared specifically toward tech careers.  In addition to being able to search for jobs based on employer, location, and keywords, you can upload your resume, track jobs, and even get valuable career advice and news.

Glassdoor.com

Glassdoor is just like the other major job sites, except it has an additional focus on helping employers gain top level employees.  It’s a great way to get discovered by the right company, and to put your information out there to the people you want to attract in your career.

Upwork.com

This is a freelance site which can be an outstanding resources for independent freelancers, students, and those looking to build their resume with contract work.  This site makes it easy to find freelance work by matching you with candidates looking for your specific skills and experience level.  No matter what your specialty, you can gain experience and income through Upwork.

LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn is becoming one of the most utilized ways for employers to find qualified candidates, and for job seekers to look at companies they want to work for.  Set up like a social media site, LinkedIn offers a personalized experience when it comes to job hunting.

What’s your favorite method of looking for jobs?  Has it been successful?  Let us know in the comments below!

Sources:

https://linkedin.com

Tech Industry Terms You’ll Want to Know

Ever been in a room with people more advanced in your career than you?  Does it feel like they are speaking a different language?  In the IT industry, there are certain terms which are commonly used that most people, especially newbies to the career path, don’t know.

IT Career Building Starts with Knowing This Lingo

If you are focused on IT career building, here are some terms you should know and understand.

Embedding

Embedding is when you put social media content onto a webpage. For example, if you were to see a YouTube video on a website, or a comments feed, that would be embedding. Although this requires coding, most social media sites will generate and supply you with the code you need to embed your content.

Call to Action

A call to action is a term used to describe anything that asks the visitor to take action. These are used as a marketing tool to try to convert viewers into buyers and can consist of anything ranging from a comment on a blog to a website banner asking the viewer to click for more information.

Data Mining

This is the strategy of examining large amounts of data to analyze the behavior and actions of website visitors. This information can be used to boost activity on your site, or to start tailoring your site to the people who are attracted to specific images or topics.

Website Optimization

Site optimization is a long-term process which employs multiple strategies to improve interaction on the site and convert viewers into buyers.  This could include strategic methods to attract the browser to specific areas of the site, or just making the website easier to navigate in general.

PPI (Pixels Per Inch)

This is the density of an image, and is used to describe the amount of pixels per inch on a display.  A higher PPI count equals a sharper image.  In many cases, there is a minimum PPI for certain projects, such as print marketing or certain online advertisements.

CSS

This is a language, used to alter documents created with HTML and add style to them.  This is the next step after HTML which is used to create the layout, color and font of the page.

What terms have you learned so far in the tech industry?   Show off your tech-savvy lingo by writing your favorite tech term in the comments below!

Sources:

https://skillcrush.com/2015/03/26/99-tech-terms/

Tech Positions You’ll Want To Aspire To

If you want to learn technical skills, you already have opened the door to a successful career in a thriving job market.  In fact, there are so many great opportunities, it’s sometimes difficult to determine what you want to do.  Here are some of the best jobs available in today’s tech job market.

These Jobs Are The Reason You Want to Learn Technical Skills

Analytics Manager

If you have an analytical mind, this career track is for you.  An analytics manager is responsible for collecting and then interpreting data.  This data is used to help business leaders make big decisions.  If your company plans on taking informed steps to success, this position is essential.  Although the title can cover a wide range of responsibilities, a background in math and advanced technical training will give you the tools you need to succeed in this career track.  

Median Salary:  $100,000.00 +

Information Technology Manager

IT Managers are unlimited when it comes to career options.  This is an in-demand position, making it a great choice for those looking for a fast career track and steady work.  Essentially, an IT Manager manages a company’s technology. They can make software recommendations, research new products, handle repairs, perform upgrades, create firewalls, handle issues and ensure security.  This is especially important for larger companies, which are less likely to outsource this position due to the constant needs that will arise.  With extensive training and the ability to stay focused and updated on the latest products, this career can be achieved.

Median Salary:  $120,000 +

Systems Architect

If you like to create systems and structure networking, this is the career you should look into. Responsibilities include provisioning, configuring and operating the business’s network systems. It can involve some technical support and definitely requires long-term vision and planning.

Media Salary:  $95,000 +

Software Development

A Software Development Manager oversees the development of software from start to finish. They generally do very well, as they are responsible for creating and managing new, exciting advances in technology.

Median Salary:  Variable

Opportunities for a stellar career are endless when you have the right IT training.  Check out these and other careers, and choose the corresponding training through TechSherpas to get started.

Sources:

indeed.com

Reasons to Continue Your Tech Training with TechSherpas

Being trained on a basic level in technology may help you launch a great career, but it won’t take you the distance.  In order to create longevity and pursue a lifelong career, you need lifelong training opportunities.

Tech Training with TechSherpas Provides Constant Improvement Opportunities

Here are a few reasons why you should work with a place that can provide constant and never-ending improvement through training for your career.

Changes in Technology Happen Every Day

It is very difficult to have a career without an understanding of technology and computer software. This can be a challenge, however, especially if you aren’t familiar with the technology. You can have a basic knowledge of technology and still not be aware or educated on the latest programs. That’s why we consistently stay ahead of the game by offering the latest training so that you can continue to educate yourself and make yourself newly relevant to your career.  Here are some of the reasons you should consider taking advantage of our courses.

The software is constantly being updated

Even though new programs are coming out all the time, each individual software also has its own updates. Software companies are constantly improving on their products to better benefit the consumer, and every time there is a major update there is more to learn. That’s why TechSherpas stays apprised of new updates and continuously offers the most recent training provided by major software companies.  Anytime you need a refresher course, you can turn to us.

Building your expertise

Being an expert in the programs designed to support your job gives you an extreme advantage in your career. You can accomplish tasks faster and on a higher level when you understand the software that supports you. A basic knowledge of a software is beneficial, but it’s not going to give you all the information on how to best use it to your advantage. When you continue your training and become an expert, you understand the benefits and limitations of these programs and working with them.

Employers and clients love seeing people who continue to advance their career through continuous education. A basic knowledge will help you get a great job, but it takes long-term and continuous training to continue to advance in your chosen career.

Sources:

https://techsherpas.com/6329-2/