Listen! (Size 12.7 MBs, Running Time 27m26s) This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing. Today's show covers: #1.) RIM's latest enterprise news; #2.) eWeek on 2008 technologies you should check out; #3.) a pointer to DOD conferences in the Washington DC area; and #4.) news about the very popular blogging tool WordPress.  Once we get through the news, there is an interview I recently recorded with President/CEO Eric Basu about how his company Sentek Consulting uses the latest technologies to enable effective virtual teams. Links mentioned during the news portion of the podcast include: Download Squad on RIM News BlackBerry on Lotus Connections Download Squad on RIM News eWeek's 2008 Technologies To Not Ignore AFCEA's DOD Spring & Fall 2008 Course Schedule Automattic's WordPress $29 million venture funding (from The New York Times, True Ventures, Radar Ventures, and Polaris Venture Partners) Links mentioned during the interview on virtual teams includes: RIM Blackberry WebEx Skype Palm Treo Smartphones Jott GrandCentral Our microbrew recommendation of the show is the Widmer Broken Halo IPA. And if you have any tech questions post them to: forums.friendsintech.com. Less

FAP743: Jobcast: Top 6 job hunting tips Listen now: Student Financial Aid News + NASFAA: “Brown University is eliminating tuition for students whose parents earn less than $60,000, after decisions by fellow Ivy League universities to bolster financial aid as their endowments grow,” The New York Times reports. “The university, in Providence, R.I., said on Saturday that it also planned to substitute grants for student loans in the financial aid packages of students whose families earned less than $100,000 a year. Brown also announced plans to increase tuition by 3.9 percent for the 2008-9 academic year to $36,928. With room and board, the costs are $47,740 for one year.” + Chronicle: Antioch College will close after all, the Antioch University Board of Trustees ruled on Friday. The decision confirms the board’s original plan, announced last June, to suspend operations at the 155-year-old campus for the 2008-9 academic year. + CNN: SLM Corp. (ticker: SLM) said Friday it is on track to close on its new and increased credit line in the asset-backed commercial paper market. The student-loan provider also said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires it expects to complete the deal in the next two weeks. The affirmation of the $35 billion of funding - up from the earlier announced $31 billion - comes amid speculation that the new financing agreement would hit a snag as investors shy away from credit markets in the ongoing credit crunch. Sallie Mae, which needs the financing for its student-lending business over the next year, will likely secure the deal at costly terms, said an asset-backed commercial paper investor. + Private student loans at AlternativeStudentLoan.com + Couple of different comparisons of private student loans Scholarship Update + NABJ/CNN Scholarship + Number of Awards Available: Four (4) four-year scholarships + Amount of the Award: $25,000 ($6,250 per year for four years) + Eligibility Criteria + Rigorous competition for the scholarship is open to high school seniors who are currently attending an accredited high-school. Students must be accepted at an accredited college college/university pursuing a career in broadcast journalism. + Be a high school senior, enrolled at an accredited academic high school. + Accepted to an accredited four-year university, with a major in broadcast journalism. + Minimum 3.0 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) + 2 Letters of recommendation + Proven community involvement + 1000 word essay + Details at our free college scholarship search site Jobcast + Again, going with a bit of a re-tread, since the original is more or less unlistenable + Top 6 Tips for Job Hunting + 1. Unique selling proposition. What is your personal brand? What sets you apart from the rest of the crowd, makes you different, unique, and better? Understanding and building your personal brand is the most important thing you can do, because all of the rest of job hunting is communicating that personal brand. If you can’t tell someone the essence of who you are and why they should hire you in one or two text messages, you need to sharpen your pencil. For example, mine is - I awaken the superhero in you. + 2. Job hunting is first and foremost a sales activity. The product you are selling is, not surprisingly, you. The only difference is that the product - unlike sweaters, computers, or cars - can talk a customer out of the sale as easily as you can make the sale. Thus, you need to develop good sales skills in order to help prospective employers understand your real value. How do you develop good sales skills? Lots of training. Take a look at Zig Ziglar’s book, Secrets of Closing the Sale, to understand how you can position yourself better. You can get it on Amazon. + 3. Job hunting is a numbers game. Assume the rule of 10: for every 1 job you land, you will need 10 interviews. For every 10 interviews you land, you will need 100 valid applications. For every 100 applications you land, you will need 1,000 good leads. If you want to consider two or three offers, you need to send out two or three THOUSAND resumes. How? That’s the joy of email. Focus on sending out at least 25 - 30 emails a day with your cover letter and resume. + 4. Job postings are a hidden treasure mine. Keep this in mind when you surf Monster.com and other job boards - a company generally will only post for positions it is most desperate for - enough to pay money for. That tells you two things: One, the company is serious about hiring. Two, the company probably has more than one position open. Consider applying for jobs at companies that meet your geographic and industry needs but don’t necessarily have the exact position you’re looking for. This is one of the best kept secrets in recruiting! + 5. Followup is the name of the game. Respond politely but clearly to EVERY response you get from your solicitations. A company may not have a job for you now, but might in two weeks, two months, or two years. Keep a record of those companies that respond with something other than an auto-reply, and touch base with your contacts every month or so. Be polite and non-intrusive. + 6. Positive mental attitude. Nothing will fail to sell a product faster than a negative emotion about it. Don’t give people a reason to discard you immediately. Project a positive attitude, even if you feel anything but. Did you enjoy today’s show? If so, please consider subscribing for free to get it delivered to you . Subscribing for free means you don’t have to remember to download it every day. + + + Direct MP3 file download: Click here to download the MP3 Reminders + Student Loan Network $10,000 Scholarship - Apply in 32 seconds or less! + Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com. + Free scholarship search secrets eBook at StudentScholarshipSearch.com/ebook + FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com + Grad student? Get graduate financial aid information at the GradLoans.com blog! + Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com + Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com + Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com + The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network. I want to hear from you! Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208. Technorati Tags: financial aid financialaidpodcast ShareThis Less

Listen! (Size 5.3 MBs, Running Time 11m33s) This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing. Today's Tech Rag Tear Outs podcast discusses a variety of topics including: Internet VoIP, electronic books, new media content, mobile tools, a Firefox plugin for protecting children's web access, and an enterprise data warehouse conference pointer.  The sources for these topics includes: eWeek, San Diego Union-Tribune, Forbes, New York Times News Service, and PC Magazine. Additional links mentioned in this article: Promo for Pauldotcom.com Skype Tina Engler Mobipocket Microsoft Reader Fictionwise Plucker Connect's eBooks Plustek OpticSlim M12 Corporate portable scanner Glubble The Data Warehousing Institue's World Conference 2007 "Getting Started with Audacity" @ New Media Expo Less

  Listen!   (Size 13.6 MBs, Running Time 29m35s) This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing. Today's "mini" Tech Rag Tear Outs examines nine top things to consider checking out and a great interview with FileMaker expert John Mark Osborne from Databasepros.com.  During the interview we discuss: history of FileMaker, John's expertise, hands-on training options for FileMaker Pro, and online training tools. Links mentioned in this podcast include: #9.) Attensa Enterprise 2.0 Feed Readers #8.) Alltel's new Where #7.) Vlingo Mobile #6.) Mark/Space Missing Sync for Windows Mobile 4.0 #5.) Thornsoft's ClipMate 7.2.05 for Windows #4.) Mindomo online mind mapping tool #3.) DivX Author 1.5 editing tool #2.) Freebase 'open source data' database #1.) Newsgator - NetNewsWire - FeedDemon We also recommend checking out Pa so Robles, CA based Steinhaus Brewing Co's Mission Street Pale Ale microbrew. Less

  Listen!   (Size 5.4 MBs, Running Time 11m47s) This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing. Today's Tech Rag Tear Outs podcast examines some pretty mainstream tech news from the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Wall Street Journal, and why it might matter to IT Professionals.  We also have a quick run down of three upcoming conference pointers that might be of interest: Knowledge Management World 2007 Real-Time & Embedded Computing Conference OpenOffice Annual Conf. (OOoCon) 2007 If you have a comment about any of these items please post to: Forums.FriendsInTech.com. Additional links mentioned in this podcast includes: Skype VMWARE EMC Microsoft Citrix XenSource Virtual Iron Software Wall Street Journal Manager Tools PanoLogic ClearCube IBM Sony eBook Reader We also recommend checking out Chicago's Stockyard Brewing Company's Oatmeal Stockyard Stout microbrew. Less

  Listen To Podcast   (Size 2.0 MBs, Running Time 4m21s) Today's Tech Tidbit podcast examines ServerLift. If you have a comment or thought about this product, please post it to FriendsInTech.com. This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing. Less

Today's podcast takes a tangent from the traditional Tech Rag Tear Outs format to examine attendees of the April 2007 Effective Manager's Conference thoughts on why they listen to the Manager-Tools.com podcast. Additional links mentioned in this podcast includes: Controlling Chaos Podcast Chuck Tomasi's Kick-A-Thon Friends In Tech Podcast and New Media Conference Forums @ Manager-Tools.com Podcast Awards You can also get connected via: Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, & LinkedIn. More information about my Audacity session at the Podcast and New Media Expo can be found via on the Podcast Expo Forums. This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing.   (Size 9.5 MBs, Running Time 20m32s) Less

Today's Technology News Podcast Review recommends the following podcasts: Iinnovate's interview with IDEO founder David Kelly Christopher Allen discusses the Dunbar Number on IT Conversations Jon Udell's interview with Navizon Jon Udell's interview with Phil Windley on identity Meal Etiquette from Manager-Tools.com (Part 1 and Part 2) WiFI Network News interviews Steve Tomlin @ Chumby MythBusters interview on Technorama HomeNetworkHelp.Info's podcast on VMWARE In addition, the following links to other technology podcast news may be of interest: LinuxDevices.com's Embedded Linux podcast series MSmobiles.com's Windows Mobile Phones Podcast Major Nelson visits the Planet Xbox 360 Podcast Scott Bourne & Chris Breen's The Apple Phone Show IT Business Edge "Can the CIO Do It All?" podcast BusinessWeek's "The CEO's Guide to RFID" podcast ZDNET's "Google talks about its newly launched CodeSearch" podcast TechWeb's "PodZinger Launches Podcast Ad Network" Wi-Fi Networking News' interview with Macworld's Jason Snell Other links mentioned in this podcast include: Forums @ FriendsInTech.com Chuck Tomasi's Kick-A-Thon This podcast is sponsored by SCOTTEVEST (SeV) - makers of fine tech clothing.   (Size 4.5 MBs, Running Time 9m36s) Less