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IT Consultants Tips for your daily life as a freelancer

IT Pros: The Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity

IT Pros: The Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity
What are the best free software tools to organise you activity as an IT Pro? Better time management will allow you to increase your productivity...

What are the best free software tools to organise you activity as an IT Pro? We all have our own method to organise our daily and weekly tasks, but that doesn´t mean we shouldn´t be keep trying new things to see what we can improve. Better time management will allow you to increase your productivity, develop stronger relationships with your team and clients and even have some extra time to work on your career development strategy.

To make that easier, we have put together a list of free software tools in the hopes you discover at least one you are not yet using. If that’s not the case, you can take this list as validation of how good a job you are already doing. Wink. Wink.

Some of these tools are completely free, while others also offer several subscription tiers. Whether you are an independent contractor or part of a company’s IT department, they will help you build better and more robust projects, more effectively and in less time.

Also read our article: IT Pros: How to Work On Remote in the Post-Pandemic World

Best free software tools to organise you activity

Google Workspace

Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity: Google Workspace

Does this one really need an introduction? Well, maybe. Especially since Google recently went and rebranded G in a move that surely confused many of us out there. Now known as Google Workspace, the productivity suite is a whole world in and of itself. From storage, to document collaboration, you will find in it everything you need to carry out all your basic everyday tasks.

Even more so since the rebrand, Gmail serves as the platform’s backbone, making it easy to create an efficient workflow between your email, calendar and files. Workspace also comes in handy when you need to share and work on documents with clients or people external to your organisation. Google Sheets is great for easily storing and sharing data sets.

Google Workspace

Evernote

Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity: Evernote

Evernote is pretty much the only notebook you will ever need, and it’s free unless you want to use it in more than two devices at once.

It’s very intuitive and quick to use, and it allows you to share individual notebooks and notes with other people, anytime, anywhere. In addition, Evernote can integrate perfectly with other tools like Google Workspace and Slack, making it an ideal solution for collaboration.

You can include almost anything you want in your notes, from images and videos to PDF documents. Furthermore, the Evernote web clipper tool makes it possible to capture screenshots and ideas directly from the web. This information is saved in a note which includes a link to the original page. All your searches are saved in one place for easy access. You can also scan physical documents directly on the app.


To transfer your emails to Evernote, you only need to forward them to your unique Evernote email address.

Evernote

Trello

Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity: Trello

This easy-to-use project management tool will inevitably improve your daily life. Juggling between a thousand tasks is not, well — an easy task. No one enjoys forgetting a deadline or wasting their time.

Trello allows you to create and manage to-do lists and set up reminders, so you don’t miss anything. What makes it particularly compelling is how simple and intuitive it is to use, letting you organise your activity without adding more work to your already packed workflow.

It’s advisable to use Trello in combination with another very practical and free tool: Toggl. This time-tracking tool allows you to have a precise idea of ​​the time you spend on each task on a daily basis. The goal is not to waste too much time on tasks that require a disproportionate time investment and to manage your time better to improve your productivity.

Trello

Asana

Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity: Asana

Asana is a free tool that was originally created at Facebook to organise internal workflows. Compared to Trello, this project management tool loses the simplicity but offers endless customisation and deeper integration with existing workflows. It is particularly useful for collaborative projects.

You can assign and delegate tasks to collaborators and set the deadlines to meet. The whole team can easily see all pending and completed tasks in a single place. Everyone is then able to plan their time to their taste to meet the specified deadlines.

Asana

Calendly

Best Free Software Tools to Organise Your Activity: Calendly

Calendly works with your Outlook, Google, iCloud and Office 365 calendars, allowing you to consolidate all your schedules into a single one for optimal management of your time. It also allows you to precisely define “break” periods between several meetings or projects, to create secret events, and to avoid certain meetings or last-minute appointments. 

But perhaps the best thing about Calendly is its automated scheduling feature, which saves you the time-consuming hassle of having to send back-and-forth emails to agree to a time that works for both parties.

The tool is perfect if you need to collaborate with people from other countries since it automatically detects the time zone of your contacts for even smarter time management. 

Calendly

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Press review Tech Magazine

Weekly News: Robot Farmers

Robot Farmers, Microsoft jobs, Ada Lovelace Day: discover our weekly news about IT & Tech.
Robot Farmers, Microsoft jobs, Ada Lovelace Day: discover our weekly news about IT & Tech.

Robot Farmers, Microsoft jobs, Ada Lovelace Day: discover our weekly news about IT & Tech.

Robot Farmers

Google‘s parent company, Alphabet, has presented a prototype for a new line of farming robots to help farmers monitor the health of crops and multiply crop yields.

Consequently, project Mineral consists of swarms of “robot buggies” that go up and down the fields inspecting every plant. They do so on upright pillars, coasting on top of the plants much like harbour container cranes do.

Meanwhile Alphabet’s goal is to accumulate large amounts of data about how crops grow to help the agricultural industry tackle the world’s increasing need for food and the sustainability of growing it.

BBC

Microsoft wants to create 1.5M jobs

In addition, Microsoft has made a pledge to create 1.5 million tech jobs in the UK over the next 5 years, with and additional 300,000 depending directly on them.

Called Get Go 2021, the campaign targets people currently in education, those looking into pursuing a career in tech, and those already in tech and wanting to change careers. The initiative is also meant to help those whose jobs have been affected by the Covid-19 crisis and bridge the IT talent gap. It will be based on education and training programs.

The company will also leverage LinkedIn data to anticipate the need for more than 3 million skilled IT workers. 

IT Pro Portal

To discover more about Microsoft: A Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide.

Ada Lovelace Day

Born in early 19th-century England, Ada Lovelace was a pioneering mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s “Analytical Engine,” a steam-powered calculating machine now regarded as the first fully-automatic mechanical computer.

Although she wrote the first-ever algorithm, Lovelace’s true genius lied in her ability to envision the computer’s potential beyond mere arithmetic calculations. She is hence considered to be the first computer programmer, a “prophet” of the computer age.

This week we celebrated Ada Lovelace Day, reflecting on women’s countless contributions to science, technology engineering and math (STEM) — something we should honestly do every day.

Let this day serve as a reminder of how much work is left to do to ensure equal representation of women in tech.

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Growing your career: permanent & freelance IT Consultants

How to become an IT consultant that stands out from the crowd

How to Become an All-Terrain IT Pro
Standing out from the crowd as an IT professional isn't always easy. Here are a few quick pointers that will help you get to become an all-terrain IT Pro.

Nowadays, it is not enough to become an IT consultant, you need to stand out from the crowd to succeed in your career.

Here are a few quick pointers that will help succeed in your career path as an IT consultant.

Become an All-Terrain IT Pro

1# Reach a good level of experience

Cultivating a solid background at the end of your studies will allow you to differentiate yourself from candidates who are either too junior or too senior and therefore too expensive. Five to ten years of experience is usually the sweet spot in terms of employability.

2# Forget hyperspecialisation

Locking yourself into a skill and mastering it from start to finish may seem like the right way to go in order to differentiate yourself from overly generalist profiles. And in fact, there is nothing wrong with specialisation. It can be a solid career strategy. However, in the world IT —and especially if you are an independent contractor— it pays to adopt a multi-specialization approach. You don’t have to confine yourself to a single language or skill. You should not be satisfied with simple expertise either. Aim for “mastery”. Recruiters will move on quickly if mastery is not conveyed through your CV and profile.

3# Certify yourself

Having the right certification for the right position is a good approach. Certifications worth pursuing include Microsoft certifications, Ninja, Dev Star, and Code Crazy.

4# Soft Skills

Mastering the technical part of a position is not everything. Your personality will also weigh in the balance. Recruiters are looking for candidates who can be at the same time pleasant, knowledgable, committed, brilliant, altruistic, punctual, cunning, eloquent, humble, methodical, polite… Whether it is negotiation or communication, you need to master your soft skills as well. These are the essential soft skills every IT professional should have.

5# Compensation

Sensitive topic, but be realistic with your salary expectations and be ready to lower them a bit is the market calls for it. Especially considering the economic uncertainty brought about by the o pandemic.

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About us Captains’s Log

Women in IT: Women Must Claim Their Spot in the IT World

Freelancers in tech: did you say precariousness?
How the Covid-19 Pandemic is Accelerating the hybridisation of Careers in Tech & IT

The numbers are clear: women are under-represented in most IT roles. Yet, ironically, companies are increasingly looking for women’s talent and their unique skills to fill technical and leadership positions. So how can we ensure that women get the place they deserve in IT? How can we collectively be better at speaking to their dreams and ambitions? How can we encourage them to pursue a career in technology?

By Manuela Delfort-Garampon, co-founder of Mindquest.

Looking for a job in IT? Check out our IT job hunting guide.

It can often be difficult to find a single woman in the IT department of a large company, even across entire office floors. As we celebrate Ada Lovelace Day in honour of this champion of women in STEM; we should take a deep look at how much progress we have made towards equal gender representation in technology. Spoiler alert: not enough.

According to various recent studies on the subject, the proportion of women in IT professions varies between 10 and 30%. Gartner estimates this proportion to be at 31% globally in 2018.

What is more, the higher up in the hierarchy, the fewer women there are. Only 13% of women occupy the position of CIO according to the 2018 Gartner CIO Survey.

But most alarmingly, the gap appears to be widening if we consider the decline in the number of women enrolled in IT-related schools.

IT needs women more than ever

IT functions are affected by a terrible talent shortage. The number of unfilled positions in digital professions is exploding. To the point that the main threat to start-ups and large IT departments has become how difficult it is to find the right person for the job.

But, as it stands, the IT world is virtually depriving itself of half of its talent pool. Attracting more women would certainly go a long way in solving the problem.

On the other hand, IT professions would have everything to gain from welcoming more women for one simple reason. Gender diversity increases team performance. Numerous studies show the positive impact of gender diversity on employee engagement and confidence, customer satisfaction and the company’s brand image.

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According to McKinsey, which has been publishing the “Women Matter” study series for ten years now, companies with 3 women or more within their management bodies; or 30% of a classic boardroom; obtained performance scores up to 7 points higher than more male-dominated companies.

The challenge of attracting interest

So, there is no lack of good arguments to move towards greater gender parity, but how can we push for it? Several axes should be tackled at once. The often-proposed principle of quotas could be a solution. But it is not a very good strategy from a talent quality point of view. Above all, it would be necessary to change social perceptions around women in tech. Rather than imposing, we should facilitate and streamline women’s access to IT professions and encourage them to choose these careers.

In the era of digital transformation, IT jobs have gained in atractiveness. But many functions are still widely associated with men. Systems architect, network engineer, project manager, data scientist, software developer … are all professions from which women tend to stay away. It is important that we give more visibility to the women already working in these sectors in order to attract future candidates.

Campaings like #WomenInTech or #WhomenWhoCode are good examples of how the IT community is working towards this goal.

Want to read more about Women in IT ? Discover our articles 20 Amazing Women Leading Europe’s Tech Revolution and A Look at Diversity in Tech

The challenge of empowerment

To break the glass ceiling, we must also make women aware of their abilities, of their value and what they have to bring to IT teams.

Today, great figures from political circles and the show business are encouraging women to get out of their comfort zone, to be vocal about their goals and fully unleash their potential and break down all these social barriers.

We should apply this global push to the world of IT so that women can stop devaluing themselves and settle for lower salaries. Finally gaining access to more strategic and technical positions.

Here again, education and communication are key. So are role models.

Women are undeniably welcome in IT, they just need to be more daring.

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Growing your career: permanent & freelance IT Consultants

The Advantages of Working On-Site in Times of COVID-19

The Advantages of Working On-Site in Times of COVID-19
Discover why you should try to spend at least some time in the office each week. These are the advantages of working on-site.

What are the advantages of working on-site in times of Covid-19? Even with COVID-19 pushing companies to adopt higher levels of telework, as an IT professional you can really benefit from the closer contact that comes with physically joining your team at the company’s premises.

Although it might not be your choice to make depending on your company’s policies, you should try to spend at least some time in the office each week whether it is for meetings or to work on your daily activities. These are the advantages of working on-site.

First of advantages of working at the office: a teamwork booster

Many companies prefer having their employees working from the office rather than remotely. The reasons behind this choice are numerous and tend to vary depending on the type of industry, the country’s regulations and company culture. It also depends on whether or not the company is able to facilitate a COVID-free space for employees to work safely.

The biggest advantage of working on site is that it makes it easier to interact and bond with the rest of the team, promoting integration and speeding up progress on your projects.

You can also take advantage of all the company’s amenities: the printer, the Internet network, the cafeteria, gym, etc. Small advantages which can contribute a great deal to your general well-being and job satisfaction.

A remedy for isolation

Remote workers often complain about the feeling of loneliness and isolation that comes with working only from home. Recent global lockdowns made us all quite aware of this problematic. It can be difficult to be alone in front of your computer all day long. Going to work at the office allows you to share your day with colleagues and set a stable rhythm for both life and work. 

It can be easy for home workers to become demotivated and procrastinate. Having to go into the office at fixed times and being able to leave once the job is finished allows for better time management while guaranteeing a real break between the private and professional worlds.

IT Pros: How to Work On Remote in the Post-Pandemic World

Develop stronger relationships

Working on-site gives you greater access to all the key interlocutors involved in the project and helps you not get stuck in case of doubt or lack of direction. But, most importantly, being physically present lets you develop stronger links with your colleagues and superiors and improves transparency.

Discover our special IT pros guide: IT Job Hunting Done Well: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Cybersecurity Tech Magazine

The State of Cybersecurity in 2020

The State of Cybersecurity in 2020
A surprising number of things can happen in a minute. Especially when it comes to cyber threats and their consequences. Quick overview. The state of cybersecurity in 2020

A surprising number of things can happen in a minute, especially when it comes to cyber threats and their consequences. Quick overview. The state of cybersecurity in 2020

Firstly, every 60 seconds, 375 attacks are unleashed upon the global community, costing the world economy $2.9 million. In other words, every single computer with an internet connection is targeted by malicious agents about 1.5 times per minute. A whooping 16,172 records are compromised.[1] Certainly not a promising picture if you are a business leader or oversee a company’s cybersecurity for a living.

As we celebrate cybersecurity awareness month to promote greater security and cyber hygiene, we would do well to keep in mind that every day should be cybersecurity awareness month. Therefore, we can all benefit from a deeper understanding of today’s most common threats and what we can do to protect our business systems from them.

Cybersecurity in 2020: the impact of the pandemic

The already complex world of enterprise security got further intricate with the advent of COVID-19. Also, the sudden shift to remote work has pushed company networks to the limit, opening a myriad of new potential points of entry for attackers to exploit. Additionally, the ensuing fear and confusion have given more leverage to attackers looking to deceive individual employees as a means to gain company-wide access. As they say: you are as strong as your weakest link. And hackers love that.

Cybsersecurity in 2020: the impact of the pandemic

Social engineering, the act of tricking someone by using their natural tendencies and emotional reactions, has acquired a whole new dimension of sophistication and finesse. Phishing emails disguised as governmental safety announcements, fake HR memos encouraging you to get acquainted with the office’s new cafeteria policy. And that is just the start two per cent of all COVID-related websites created in recent months contain malicious code. A seemingly small number until you realise there are billions of COVID-19 pages out there.[2]

Remote work is here to stay, and so are the advanced techniques that cybercriminals use. In fact, they will only get more refined in the months to come.    

A growing variety of cyber threats – Cybersecurity in 2020

In addition to the rising complexity of attacks, the sheer variety of techniques hackers use is a top concern for companies and cybersec professionals who are struggling to catch up with an ever-growing catalogue of threats. New forms of mobile malware alone, for instance, have grown 12% compared to last year. PowerShell-based malware, which leverages the Microsoft task automation and configuration management framework to carry out attacks without leaving any traces, grew by 1,902% over the same time period.[3]  

Also discover our article & interview: Leadership Failure: The Real Human Element Behind Cyber Attacks

Targeting the cloud

Cloud has become the backbone of the modern enterprise, and hackers are targeting it accordingly. The rise in attacks is being particularly felt in those industries which depend the most on the cloud for productivity. For example, threats aimed at the transportation and logistics sector increased by 1,350% in the first quarter of the year. Education experienced a 1,114% rise in attacks, with governmental organisations, manufacturing and financial services following behind.[4]    

The Top 10 Belgian Cloud Pros to Follow on Twitter

Most attacks are opportunistic in nature and involve the “spraying” of cloud accounts with stolen access credentials. The majority of access attempts came from either China, Iran or Russia. [5] 

Ransomware-as-a-service

While phishing and trojans are still behind most cyber attacks, ransomware continues to surge and is perhaps the most feared malware of them all. Its capacity to cripple an entire company’s operations in a matter of minutes, together with how difficult it can be to prevent these attacks in the first place, surely keeps many security specialists and IT managers awake at night. Also, threat actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

What started as attacks by individual hackers or small rogue groups has now evolved into full-fledged criminal organisations that operate under a ransomware-as-a-service approach. Some even have “customer service” helplines to guide victims through the process of paying the ransom.

These hacker groups have greatly benefited from COVID-19, taking advantage of the increase in cloud usage and telework. Half of the world’s organisations were hit by ransomware last year, with most successful ransomware attacks involving public cloud data. Data was successfully encrypted in 73% of attacks.[6]

Additionally, attackers are finding more and more weaknesses to exploit as remote workers and IT engineers increasingly use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to access internal resources. The higher use of personal devices has also complicated the problem of shadow IT, multiplying the potential points of access and making it more challenging for security professionals to safeguard company networks.

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[1] The 2020 Evil Internet Minute, RiskIQ, Inc. (2020)
[2] 2020 Threat Report, Webroot (2020)
[3] The McAfee Labs COVID-19 Threats Report, McAfee (2020)
[4] McAfee Labs COVID-19 Threats Report, McAfee (2020)
[5] McAfee Labs COVID-19 Threats Report, McAfee (2020)
[6] The State of Ransomware 2020, Sophos (2020)
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Press review Tech Magazine

Weekly News: Windows Made With Linux

Weekly News: Windows Made With Linux
Discover 3 IT lastest news. Windows made with Linux. Linux the new Windows? - AI: behind the screens - The pandemic and S/4HANA implementation

Is Linux the new Windows?

The renowned open-source champion Eric Raymond has always been a huge Linux believer. 

Raymond has long argued that the OS is destined to rule the desktop market. Now he’s gone a step further by saying that it won’t be long before Windows 10 becomes a simple emulation layer on top the Linux kernel. 

According to Raymond, Microsoft’s latest investments in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) reveal that the Redmond, Virginia company might be quite aware of this impending shift. The company also has recently unveiled a Linux version of Edge for IT pros to test websites. 

But there’s more: the Windows emulation might ultimately disappear altogether, leaving us with a Microsoft shell that is basically all built on Linux.

ZDNet

AI: behind the screens

Despite the media buzz around AI, it can be difficult for someone who is not immersed in the technology to precisely tell you how and where it is being applied. 

Well, this week we got a behind-the-screens look at what developers are doing in both the public and the private sector.

The city of Amsterdam debuted the Algorithm Register, a portal where everyone can learn more about the various AI initiatives being implemented across the city. 

Also, Alexa developers unveiled how they get Amazon’s smart home assistant to interpret what users mean rather than what they say. Here’s more. 

The pandemic and S/4HANA implementation

S4HANA implementation was ramping up before COVID-19 hit the global business community. Now, as uncertainty piles up, some organisations might consider postponing their migration to SAP’s next-gen ERP until things settle down a bit. 

But should they? 

In an interview with TechTarget, S/4 experts recommend taking advantage of the current disruption. The slowdown in activity offers a great opportunity for IT departments to undergo a more thorough examination of their legacy ERP and come up with a better ecosystem that delivers greater business value.

The biggest challenge they face: convincing business leaders their S/4 project should move ahead.

TechTarget

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Horizon 2050

Nadia — Chapter IV

Nadia
The story of Nadia, a quantum security expert in 2050 London. Follow the chapter I of the story of Nadia on Mission Control Center.

Follow the story of Nadia, a quantum security expert in 2050 London

Nadia, a story by Miquel Morales.

—

Jumping in now? Catch up with previous chapters.

Chapter IV

“You know, it’s not the first time I deal with the likes of you. Nor it will be the last, for that matter.”

The woman had a distinctive voice. Coarse, yet sharp as a whistle. A slight lisp and the way she pronounced the ‘r’ betrayed her as a non-native English speaker. Eastern Europe, maybe? Hard to tell.   

“Scoundrels. Corporate leeches who would rather put their energy to nefarious use than do their actual job. Tell me: what was it, how did they get to you? Money? It’s usually money. Perhaps the promise of a shiny new job?”

Nadia tried to keep a steady face despite the woman’s determined scrutiny. A plain metallic table separated the two of them in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Exactly how one would imagine an interrogation room to look like.

“Excuse me, where exactly are we?” It had been a relatively short ride to whatever that place was, but the back of the van they had put her in had no windows. In any case, they couldn’t have gotten further than a few blocks. Somehow, the secrecy of it all made Nadia think it had less to do with the actual police and more with someone else’s particular idea of justice. Ugh, so stupid. If only she had made it for the elevator a couple of seconds earlier, the policeman’s hand wouldn’t have been able to stop the doors from closing. Guess no one is naturally prepared to run from the police at a moment’s notice.  

“Ah, she speaks!”

“I do!” said Nadia with a mocking smile. “And I can tell you right away that I don’t have the foggiest idea of what you are talking about.”

“Funny, because your friend said quite the opposite.”

“My friend?”

The woman pulled up some information on her bracelet’s screen.

“Mr… Tom Schultz. Ah, chatty fella.” Wait, how was Tom involved in any of this? “We know you stole the RayStar duplos, so let’s go straight to the point, please.”

“What?” It was impossible to hide her surprise this time around. “I did not do such… Wait. Are you even police?” Definitely not. This has RayStar written all over it.

“Who is paying you?” The woman was clearly starting to lose her temper.

The door opened and a man in a suit walked in. He leaned on to whisper something in the interrogator’s ear.

“We’re not done here,” said the woman as she reluctantly stood up and followed the man out of the room. The door locked with a beep.

Nadia finally let her guard down and allowed her body to show how nervous she really was, her right foot going up and down in an endless loop. She wished they hadn’t taken her earpiece. She could’ve used Ziza’s help with going through the events of these recent days. The duplos. But EVE had not gotten even remotely close to that data. She couldn’t have the way the system was designed. Especially not with that useless hidden attachment strategy. Plus, EVE’s target had always been the proprietary security algorithms of Nadia’s company. Or at least Nadia had assumed so, given her interest in getting close to the quantum encryption core systems. No, they must have made a mistake. Nadia hadn’t messed around with the duplo dataflows at all. Someone else had to be behind all this. Or had she missed something? She would just tell them about EVE, the attachments, the kidnapping of her sister… The door opened again. It was…

“Tom?! What on Earth…”

“Nadia, listen. There is no time.” He was all sweaty and dishevelled, his eyes full of fear behind the colourful glasses. “They know everything, they figured it all out. I’m so sorry. They had Hao’s file, and they said they would…”

“Tom!” Nadia grabbed him by the shirt and tried to shake him into making some sense. “What is going on? What are you doing here, and what did you do?”    

 “I… There is no time! They will be back any second.” He took her by the arm and the two ushered into a dimly lit hallway with concrete walls. “You need to get out of the city. Didn’t you have a friend up in Coventry? “

“I do. But my sister…” They were now running through a maze of corridors across what seemed like the basement of a large building.

“Your sister is fine, don’t worry.”

“Wait, how do you…”

“She’s fine Nadia! You need to worry about yourself right now.” Voices and steps could be heard some distance behind them. The guards were in pursuit. And getting close.

“Where is my sister?” They reached a fire escape door and Tom cracked it open, prompting the alarm to go off. The light of day filtered in, momentarily blinding Nadia.

“Remember the party the other day? Wait until nightfall and head there. You will understand everything once I’ve also left you an untraceable paycard. You shouldn’t use any of your accounts until I contact you. Not until we clear our name.”

“Tom – where is my sister!”

“Where she has been all this time. At her place.”

“What!”

“Trust me Nadia, I’ve got a plan.” He reached inside his shirt’s chest pocket and took out Nadia’s earpiece. He handed it to her and pushed her towards the door. “Now go! I’ll keep them for as long as I can.”

Flooded with questions, Nadia rushed out into a quiet back alley and started running without looking back. A shot could be heard in the distance.

To be continued…

Read the next chapter: Nadia — Chapter V

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Growing your career: permanent & freelance IT Consultants

A Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide

A Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide
Learn all about Microsoft careers and the various paths one can take within the Microsoft Technologies ecosystem with this comprehensive series of articles.

Learn all about Microsoft careers and the various paths one can take within the Microsoft Technologies ecosystem with this guide.

It was not that long ago that Microsoft seemed on track to take a more secondary role in the future of enterprise technology.

Software sales had been sluggish for some time, and the company seemed unable to keep up with the pace of innovation of its competitors. Well, things change quickly, especially in IT.

To the surprise of some, Microsoft has managed to bounce back in just a few years. It has indeed delivered its finest OS to date, Windows 10, created a new line of successful hardware products like the Surface. Thus it become a top contender in the cloud wars. Moreover, Microsoft is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current situation. Being incredibly fortunate with cloud-based collaboration tools ranging from Azure and Office 365 to Microsoft Teams.

Hence, investing time and resources in pursuing one of the many Microsoft careers is a solid career bet. Here is a little roadmap that we hope helps guide you on your journey to personal and IT professional success.

Microsoft careers: a solid IT career investment

Microsoft careers: a solid career investment

The surge in remote work caused by COVID-19 has greatly helped the cloud industry. Microsoft’s Azure business keeps on growing, consolidating the company’s position as the world’s second-largest cloud provider with only Amazon ahead. In turn, the increased demand for cloud know-how has led to a severe drought of talent, especially in areas like cybersecurity. Both cloud and security are highly coveted these days.

Additionally, in a world dominated by data, business intelligence is key. Here, Microsoft also reigns supreme with tools like Microsoft Power BI — a business intelligence platform that caters to business users. As an IT professional, knowing your way around MS Power BI will make you a great asset in today’s enterprise. There will always be someone in need of an expert to set up the environment, train end-users and troubleshoot.

Finally, Microsoft’s sheer size and reach, as well as its tools and platforms focused on developers. This means that a vast amount of applications and solutions are developed using Microsoft’s technology.

Ubiquity, scalability, flexibility and endless possibilities are the words that come to mind when trying to explain what Microsoft stands for in this day and age.

In addition, the Redmond, Virginia company is almost everywhere and in everything, connecting the world economy across industries, practices and solutions.

This Microsoft careers guide connects the dots and providing a holistic perspective on the Microsoft ecosystem and the various career paths one can take within.

The Microsoft Technology Stack

Microsoft careers: The Microsoft Technology Stack

Ubiquity, productivity, scalability, flexibility. These are some of the words that come to mind when trying to explain what Microsoft stands for in this day and age. The Redmond, Virginia company is almost everywhere and in everything, connecting the world economy across industries, practices and solutions. Cloud, operating systems, repositories, collaboration tools…

But, as an IT professional, you would encompass more than enough by focusing on the company’s core solutions. Here are the principal technologies in the Microsoft Technology Stack.

The different IT career paths within Microsoft

Microsoft careers: The different career paths within Microsoft

Given the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s tech stack, the number of jobs and specialties that the environment comprises is practically impossible to capture completely and concisely at the same time. There are just too many.

However, you can identify a series of recurrent role across the various technologies. The company itself highlights these common career paths in its training programs.

Also explore our article on Microsoft career paths for an overview of the different career paths within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Developing your Microsoft expertise

Microsoft careers: Developing your Microsoft expertise

As with other proprietary families of technologies, the best way to go about learning the basics and getting a foot in the door is through official Microsoft certifications. These provide you with a solid technical foundation while validating your expertise in front of recruiters and the overall industry.

In conclusion, there is a myriad of certifications one can obtain, based on desired role or IT career path, or depending on the specific skills you would like to acquire.

Here’s a quick guide to the world of Microsoft certifications.  

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Weekly News: Artificial Intelligence, Minecrafting the Real World

IT news

Since 2018, the Generative Design in Minecraft (GDMC) competition challenges participants to push the limits of artificial intelligence and come up with realistic cities from scratch.

If you are unfamiliar with Minecraft (I doubt it), the cube-based video game lets players build all sorts of structures with almost absolute freedom. In other words, cubic freedom.

Participants must leverage a combination of various Artificial Intelligence techniques in Minecraft to level terrain, build roads and bridges and erect buildings. It is a very complex task involving everything from path-finding algorithms to machine learning, but it’s starting to come together. 

Surely the technology is still years away, but it looks like city planners and designers will soon have a new digital partner for their construction projects.

Your future apartment building might well be designed by an AI architect. At least parts of it.

Racist Artificial Intelligence strikes again

And speaking of artificial intelligence I, yet another poorly trained algorithm has put yet another Internet giant in serious trouble. This time it was Twitter’s turn. 

Have you ever wondered how the platform decides what parts of a picture to crop in preview mode? It is, of course, an image-cropping algorithm. Using a combination of tools, Twitter tries to prioritise faces and text, unless your face is black. 

Ironically, the issue was discovered when a PhD student was trying to tweet about another racially-biased algorithm he had encountered on Zoom. The videoconferencing service had erased the image of his black colleague after failing to recognise his face. Twitter decided that wasn’t enough and erased his colleague from the screen capture too. 

Although the company was quick to apologise for not testing the algorithm thoroughly enough, Twitter feeds quickly filled up with people doing experiments to test the flaw. Some even tried posting images of differently coloured dogs. 

Time for lessons to be learnt.

Announcements from Microsoft Ignite

Microsoft has kickstarted its annual Ignite user-focused conference by announcing a series of additions to its cloud and productivity portfolios. 

Teams is getting new security and compliance-related features, as well as a suite of new tools to help companies better support remote workers. The latter are mainly data insights to assess the overall wellbeing of employees, made available to users and managers to help them improve productivity and reduce burnout.

The company has also teased Virtual Commute, an upcoming Teams functionality aimed at helping workers unwind after a long day of work. Hmm, how about not being on Teams after working hours to start with?

Plans to expand Azure Stack’s hybrid cloud capabilities have also been announced. The platform lets businesses run public cloud-like workloads within on-premise data centres. Users will be now able to run and deploy containerized applications on the setup, while the Azure Stack Hub will incorporate GPU support for broader machine learning capabilities.