Stories by Lisa Schmeiser

Recession-proof IT jobs

IT workers may have been tempted to switch to any other field -- other than banking, that is -- following a stream of depressing surveys that gloomily predict shrinking IT budgets and shrinking career opportunities.

The six commandments of social networking at work

It can be easy to disregard social networking's professional potential if you're only going on what you see on television. Between endlessly replayed clips where hysterical young men beg everyone to leave Britney Spears alone and the eyebrow-raising antics that a MySpace pinup performs on "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila," it's understandable that many businesspeople are tempted to write off MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter as career-killers and some IT leaders consider pulling the plug on social networking use within the business.

How to fire an IT person

Joseph Powell first suspected that there were problems with his IT contractor when the admin refused to cede his administrative rights on an accounting software package. Powell, who was the business administrator for a private school, began noticing more issues. When the school's board ordered the IT admin to cede control of the software, he began introducing deliberate errors into the school's database. "We also began to experience costly downtime on the network coinciding with any time [he] was unhappy with how he was treated by the administration," Powell says.

EMC gets greener with IT-facilities partnership

Do you want to lower your datacenter's temperatures, reduce your operating costs, and extend the life of your existing equipment? EMC datacenter services manager Ken Goodrow has some advice for you: Make friends with your facilities team.