IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

One hundred years ago, life was very different. The year 1916 was a leap year, and appropriately saw some interesting and unusual events:

In the late 1960s, instructors at the University of Southern California created a full-body mannequin simulator for anesthesia students to practice real life scenarios. In the 1980s, when personal computers became more accessible, aviation simulations were developed to give students a taste of real flight before ever leaving the ground. In both of these fields of study, effective training is a matter of life and death, and simulation has been the mainstay to success.

To what extent your earning power is dictated by where you live and work is an open question in employment circles. Things are no different in the IT realm, where factors like supply and demand, cost of living, and the pace of industry growth can all play a role in determining the lay of the land. There are doubtless high salaries to be had just about anywhere that you choose to look for work, but it may be easier to find those "jackpot" jobs in some states than in others. You can get a certification anywhere, but that certification may be worth more in some states than in others.

Life is going pretty good for me lately and I have a whole lot of reasons to be excited. To start with, I’m a University of Nebraska football fan — five national championships, 46 conference championships, and the most wins and highest winning percentage of any program over the last 50 years. “HUSKER POWER” all the way! It’s also TestOut’s 25th anniversary, and to help commemorate it, we just released Desktop Pro Plus, the newest addition to our Microsoft Office training series.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a holiday was established that has changed the landscape of the entire universe. Celebrated by everyone from Wookiee to Nerf, Ewok to Jawa, dark side of the force to the light, May the 4th is a day where we all stop, observe and agree on one thing — Star Wars is Awesome. May the 4th is a day where fans of Star Wars geek out in any way they can, whether it’s through a movie marathon, drinking Yoda Soda or filming an epic choreographed lightsaber battle fans try all they can to understand the ways of the force.