IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

It wouldn’t take long for a newcomer to the internet (someone who’d been living in a cave since, oh, 2008 or so) to recognize that web users have a serious obsession with lists. What are the “17 Food Questions You Didn’t Know You Needed an Answer To,” for example, or the “Top 10 Most Venomous Snakes”? Don’t you sort of with that you knew “14 Things Every Book Nerd Can Relate to on Valentine’s Day,” or that you could brag to your buddies about your “inside” knowledge of the “10 Tales from the Production of the Original Star Wars”? The list of lists goes on and on, and increases on an hourly basis. Most of these lists will provide a reader with a nice, “Huh, that’s interesting” moment of truth and trivia, but the information is far from life changing. There is one list however that could change the course of your career: The Certification Magazine Salary Survey 75.

Like the age-old mythological image of a snake swallowing its tail, some arguments go round and round until there's nothing left but a guarantee of stalemate. All that ultimately gets settled is that there is nothing the opposing sides can do except agree to disagree. One point of frequent discussion in the information technology realm is whether aspiring professionals are better prepared to enter the industry by pursuing a steady diet of IT certifications, or by investing the time, money and energy required to complete a college degree.

I recently read an article in Certification Magazine about an older woman who suffers from physical disabilities so severe that she was considered unemployable. Lois Agler made her way to a Goodwill facility in Michigan that offered free IT training. She trained using PC Pro, earned her CompTIA A+ certification and is now working as a Tier-1 helpdesk technician earning more than $19 an hour. The article reminded me of a conversation with one of my Office Pro customers who suffers from dyslexia, a developmental reading disorder in which the brain has trouble recognizing and processing certain letters.

This weekend, all eyes will shift to Santa Clara, Calif., where the best of the best will compete in the most watched sporting event of the year. Super Bowl 50 will showcase two former No. 1 draft pick quarterbacks — one (Cam Newton, a.k.a. Superman) who’s playing in his first Super Bowl, and the other (Peyton Manning, a.k.a. The Sheriff) who may well be competing in his last. The Panthers have the NFL’s top offense, while the Broncos boast its best defense. Both teams entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seeds of their respective conferences.

Databases are an essential part of our modern society. They’re so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how often we deal with them. Let’s look at a typical Friday evening and count the databases you’ll encounter along the way: At 5:00, you clock out using your company’s time keeping software (1) and drive home. On the way, you stop by the grocery store. You scan each of your items using the self-checkout stand (2), swipe your loyalty card (3), and pay with your debit card (4).