An internet resource with guidance books for IT professionals might provide the kind of night reading to get any budding career off the ground. Most of the electronic guides at the site http://www.devx.com/ebook are free.

The publications are sponsored by technology companies, so you might be surprised by some soft selling. You won't find any in 'Navigating Your IT Career', a guide on the trends and how to catch the rising tide, is well worth the read. Where are the jobs to be found?

According to the guide, the Robert Half Technology Survey found that chief information officers ranked Microsoft Windows Server 2002-03 administration as the skill-set most in demand, followed by network administration and database management. The information squares with the six IT job titles included the US Bureau of Labour Statistics' list of the 30 fastest growing occupations from 2004 to 2014.

These are network systems and data communications analysts (54.6 percent growth), computer software engineers, applications (48.4 percent growth); software engineers, systems software (43 percent growth); network and computer systems administrators (38.4 percent growth); database administrators (38.2 percent growth) and systems analysts (31.4 percent growth).

The guide also gives details on how to negotiate a salary, and advice on job security and how to deal with a lay-off. The IT job market remains reasonably stable, with the number of IT job openings in 2007 mirroring an overall trend of employment growth. While no one believes the job market is likely to expand dramatically, a majority of experts describe this year's employment outlook as "stable" or "steady" and expect moderate increases in the number of available jobs, according to the handbook.

In terms of salary Robert Half Technology says software developers will garner the greatest gains — a 5.1 percent raise in base compensation — putting average base pay between $60,250 and $94,750 annually.

Who knows what that translates to in Bermuda? If you do, send me a range and I will of course keep your name confidential. I know most of us like salary gazing but do not want to admit to it! Other salary gainers include web developers (average 4.2 percent increase), data warehouse managers (average 4.2 percent increase), project managers (average 4.1 percent increase), quality assurance analysts (average 4.1 percent increase), and applications architects (average four percent increase).

Other digital guides in the online library include ones on various aspects of security and other techno matters, a good grounding for youngsters about to graduate and thinking of a career in IT. For those in the midst of it, handbooks such as 'Guide to Managing an IT Staff', provide a sort of continuing education programme.

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All hail the scientists who discovered "giant magnetoresistance", the phenomenon exploited by computers and portable devices to read data off disks.

Scientists Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics for their discovery that "giant magnetoresistance" allows weak magnetic changes to produce big differences in electrical resistance. Industry has exploited the phenomenon to develop the sensitive reading devices that pull data off hard drives in computers, and portable devices such as iPods. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the development "one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology".

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Beware of the Storm worm, according to technology commentator Bruce Schneier. In his regular blog, Schneier points out that the Storm has been going since the start of the year, creating an ever-growing network of computers in what's called a 'botnet'.

Storm is a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one, says Schneier. It hides in e-mail attachments with the subject line: "230 dead as storm batters Europe."

"It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between one million and 50 million computers have been infected world-wide," he writes.

Worms like Storm are written by hackers looking for profit and represents the future of malware, he writes. Unfortunately no one has a clue as to who controls Storm, although speculation is that they're Russian.

"Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams," Schneier said. "There are rumours that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing."

So watch out for it. Coming to a mailbox near you.

Get more information at www.schneier.com.

If you have any comments send them to elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com.