Category: General

Money: Software Engineer is best job in America

According to Money Magazine, the best job in America is Software Engineer. This is great news for those of us involved in creating software and all the support positions it takes to release a stable and successful piece of software. 10-year job growth forecast is 46% with an average salary of just over $80,000. That average pay seems quite low at least for the Seattle area.

Here are the jobs that round out the Top 10 (ave. pay/10-year growth)

  1. Software Engineer – $80,500/46%
  2. College Professor – $81,500/31%
  3. Financial Advisor – $122,500/26%
  4. HR Manager – $73,500/23%
  5. Physician Asst – $75,000/50%
  6. Market Research Analyst – $82,500/20%
  7. Computer/IT Analyst – $83,500/36%
  8. Real Estate Appraiser – $66,000/23%
  9. Pharmacist – $92,000/25%
  10. Phsychologist – $66,500/19%

But this guy has the best job in America

Updated List of Favorite Podcasts

Here’s a list of my favorite podcasts. All are available directly from iTunes or Yahoo.

  1. Ask a Ninja – Absolutely hilarious. I’m hooked.
  2. Business Week – A podcast about the week’s cover story in interview format.
  3. ESPN Radio – One of several sports podcasts I listen to each day.
  4. Inside Silicon Valley – From the San Jose Mercury News. Excellent interviews.
  5. NerdTV – Robert Cringely interviews tech icons.
  6. RocketBoom – Amanda finds the weirdest stuff around
  7. Slate Magazine – Stories taken from Slate.com make for a unique podcast.
  8. The Body Odd – Bizarre facts about your body from MSNBC
  9. The Onion Radio News – Short, hilarious snippets of Onion news.
  10. This Week in Tech – If I could listen to only one podcast, TWIT would be it.
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DirecTivo lives for at least another 3 years

tivo.logo.man-744939.jpgIt would be a very sad day if DirecTV stopped supporting my DirecTivo device. Yes, I could get a stand alone Tivo unit but a single tuner just won’t cut it when I want to record “Worlds Wildest Police Chases” and Kim wants to watch “ER”. Once you live with dual tuners you can never go back

The Comcast DVR has dual tuners but the UI looks like it was created back in 1985, and it’s not nearly as smart (No Season Pass, no commercial skip) and as easy to use. People that like the Comcast DVR have never used Tivo before, I’m convinced.

Well, good news from the DirecTivo camp as DirecTV has announced they will continue to support the DirecTivo by extending their relationship with Tivo for another three years. This is welcome news!

NERD ALERT: But as much as I love my Tivo, I’m not even in the same league as Matt Ward, Tivo’s first Tivo Ambassador.

RadarSync where have you been?

I’ve been waiting for a product like this for years. Ever wish you had an easy and quick way to track down the latest driver and software updates for your machine? Look no further than the ultra-cool RadarSync which will scan your system and let you know if an updated driver or software version is available. For $29/year it will even link you directly to the update for easy installation. KILLER!

I wish Windows would include such a service for free. The only downside I’ve found is that it requires ActiveX which means you’ll have to dust off that moldy version of IE in order to run the scan.

A friend told me about DriveAgent which is very similar.

The Dell De-Crapifier

One reason I prefer to build my own computers is not having to deal with all the crap large computer makers install on every system. I recently received a new Dell laptop computer at work and could not believe all the extra junk that had been installed. My desktop and Start Menu were plastered with all sorts of junky programs that companies pay Dell to hawk. Oh ya, just what I need….an AOL account. I spent about an hour uninstalling software that nobody wants but Dell feels I should have.

I wish I had come across this cool utility from Jason York earlier. Jason has built the Dell De-Crapifier which looks for lame pre-installed software on Dell computers and automatically uninstalls it.