Boredom Bashing Careers

In a 2010 study by University College London, researchers found a possible link between boredom at work and a shorter life expectancy. While researchers said that a boring job alone can't kill you (phew!), they did conclude it can potentially lead to risky habits that pose possible health concerns.
Whether you want to make a career change or are planning for your first job and don't want to be bored at work, we have broken down some of the more interesting career choices by industry.
Keep reading for info on how you can prepare for these interesting careers ...

Business Careers

From marketing to PR to event planning, the business world is full of anything but boring career opportunities. Check out these boredom bashing business careers:

• #1 - Event Planner
  If you like to throw parties, you should think about a career as a convention or event planner. In this career, you probably won't be confined to a cubicle and you'll get a chance to meet new people.
  Education: To pursue this track, one option would be to earn an associate's degree in business administration. According to the Department of Labor, detail-oriented administrative assistants often transition into this career.
  Average Earnings: $48,780*

• #2 - Public Relations Specialist
  Enjoy talking to and communicating with others? A career in public relations (PR) may be for you. Whether you're working for a big or small company, the gig will probably involve communicating your message to the masses, perhaps through the press or social media.
  Education: Many entry-level PR specialists have a bachelor's degree in PR, marketing, or communications, according to the Department of Labor. Courses in advertising, business administration, and journalism can also be helpful.
  Average earnings: $59,150*

Health Care Careers

If you're exploring more interesting career options, look to an industry with real life and death stakes: health care. The timing may be good for transitioning into health care, since it currently features 10 of the 20 fastest growing careers in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Check out these two interesting health care career options:

• #1 - Pharmacy Technician
  Want to avoid a lengthy degree program and still pursue health care opportunities? This career - which can involve interacting with customers, assisting pharmacists, and helping fill prescriptions - generally doesn't need a bachelor's degree to get hired, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
  Education: Requirements vary by state in this career, according to the Department of Labor, which adds that most employers prefer to hire pharmacy techs who have prepared in a career-based program.
  Average earnings: $29,330*

• #2 - Health Services Manager
  Sick and tired of taking orders and want to pursue a job in management? As a health services manager, you'll likely be in charge of a department of a hospital or health care clinic, if not an entire facility.
  Education: Earning a bachelor's degree in health care administration, business administration, or even management could provide a strong foundation and help you pursue more entry-level positions in smaller facilities and departments, according to the Department of Labor. To pursue a manager position, you'll likely need work experience and perhaps even an MBA, according to the Department.
  Average earnings: $93,670*

Technology Careers

Mark Twain once said that if you don't like the weather in New England, wait a few minutes and it will change. It seems like technology is evolving at the same speed these days, making for an always interesting career track. Check out these two exciting career options in IT:

• #1 - Computer Support Specialist
  Helping companies and individuals overcome technical glitches and computer and software problems is the name of the game for computer support specialists.
  Education: Employers usually look for applicants with an associate's degree in IT or a certificate in tech support, according to the U.S. Department, while others may prefer a bachelor's degree. Either way, strong-problem solving skills and the ability to communicate well is also important.
  Average earnings: $49,930*

• #2 - Information Security Analyst
  There is nothing boring about fighting cyber-crime and helping prevent computer security breaches, which is what information security analysts do for a living, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
  Education: Employers generally prefer applicants with a bachelor's degree in an IT-related field like computer science or network administration, according to the Department of Labor, which adds that in some cases work experience and certification may be enough to join this cutting-edge career as well.
  Average earnings: $79,370*

*All average earnings info comes from the U.S Department of Labor using May 2010 national estimates.
Source: Yahoo

Concerns ahead of S. Africa climate talks

South Africa's preparations to host the next major round of climate talks have met with scepticism from activists critical of what they say is the country's lack of leadership on environmental issues.

The high-level meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for November 28 to December 9 in the eastern port city of Durban, is seen as the last chance to renew the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement with binding targets for cutting greenhouse gases.

But environmentalists have voiced concern that South African organisers are not doing enough to lay the groundwork for an ambitious conference that will make hard commitments on climate change and raise the cash to achieve them.

"In terms of preparation, in terms of setting the agenda and setting the level of ambition and so on, we still do not have as much clarity as there should be," the international head of Greenpeace, South African activist Kumi Naidoo, told AFP.

"How are the preparations going? Not in an inspiring manner," said Richard Worthington, head of the climate programme at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) South Africa.

"From a diplomatic, preparing-the-ground point of view, we would like to see efforts stepped up significantly. Things have been slow getting going. It's not too late to come right, but time is running out."

There are rumours on the ground that preparations for the talks have been bogged down by infighting between the foreign and environment ministries over which is responsible for what.

"It's a mess. The ministers are fighting, and we don't even have a website. We are not communicating enough," a government source told the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper.

The ministers denied those reports, saying they were working well together and had clearly delineated portfolios: foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane is organising the talks, and environment minister Edna Molewa is heading up South Africa's delegation.

"In South African vocabulary, there is no such thing as a turf war," Nkoana-Mashabane told journalists at a briefing on the preparations, which the ministers both said were going well.

The United Nations has also given a vote of confidence, with UN conference coordinator Salwa Dallalah telling reporters in Durban: "We are moving very well and we are on target."

South Africa also faces the challenge of reduced global expectations for what can come out of the talks.

The Kyoto Protocol's initial five-year commitment period, covering 37 industrialised countries, expires at the end of 2012.

Japan, Canada and Russia have all rejected a new round of carbon-cutting commitments. The world's top two polluters, China and the United States, never signed Kyoto at all.

And the United States and the European Union have already said there is zero chance of reaching a binding emissions deal in Durban.

"I think it would be fair to say that the prospects for even a reasonable outcome are not looking good right now," said the WWF's Worthington.

South Africa only bears a portion of the blame as hosts, he added, praising Pretoria for pushing internationally for what he called "a progressive outcome relative to the prospects".

The larger problem, he said, is that "political will internationally is sorely lacking."

But South Africa, which relies on coal for more than 90 percent of its electricity and is currently building two massive new coal-fired power plants, has also been criticised for a lack of leadership on climate issues.

"There is a disconnect between the role we've played in (climate) negotiations, on the one hand, and what we are doing domestically," said Greenpeace's Naidoo.

"We are still clinging onto our addiction to fossil fuels."

Source: Yahoo

Your smartphone: a new frontier for hackers

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hackers are out to stymie your smartphone.

Last week, security researchers uncovered yet another strain of malicious software aimed at smartphones that run Google's popular Android operating system. The application not only logs details about incoming and outgoing phone calls, it also records those calls.

That came a month after researchers discovered a security hole in Apple Inc.'s iPhones, which prompted the German government to warn Apple about the urgency of the threat.

Security experts say attacks on smartphones are growing fast — and attackers are becoming smarter about developing new techniques.

"We're in the experimental stage of mobile malware where the bad guys are starting to develop their business models," said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of Lookout Inc., a San Francisco-based maker of mobile security software.

Wrong-doers have infected PCs with malicious software, or malware, for decades. Now, they are fast moving to smartphones as the devices become a vital part of everyday life.

Some 38 percent of American adults now own an iPhone, BlackBerry or other mobile phone that runs the Android, Windows or WebOS operating systems, according to data from Nielsen. That's up from just 6 percent who owned a smartphone in 2007 when the iPhone was released and catalyzed the industry. The smartphone's usefulness, allowing people to organize their digital lives with one device, is also its allure to criminals.

All at once, smartphones have become wallets, email lockboxes, photo albums and Rolodexes. And because owners are directly billed for services bought with smartphones, they open up new angles for financial attacks. The worst programs cause a phone to rack up unwanted service charges, record calls, intercept text messages and even dump emails, photos and other private content directly onto criminals' servers.

Evidence of this hacker invasion is starting to emerge.

— Lookout says it now detects thousands of attempted infections each day on mobile phones running its security software. In January, there were just a few hundred detections a day. The number of detections is nearly doubling every few months. As many as 1 million people were hit by mobile malware in the first half of 2011.

— Google Inc. has removed about 100 malicious applications from its Android Market app store. One particularly harmful app was downloaded more than 260,000 times before it was removed. Android is the world's most popular smartphone operating software with more than 135 million users worldwide.

— Symantec Corp., the world's biggest security software maker, is also seeing a jump. Last year, the company identified just five examples of malware unique to Android. So far this year, it's seen 19. Of course, that number pales compared with the hundreds of thousands of new strains targeting PCs every year, but experts say it's only a matter of time before criminals catch up.

"Bad guys go where the money is," said Charlie Miller, principal research consultant with the Accuvant Inc. security firm, and a prominent hacker of mobile devices. "As more and more people use phones and keep data on phones, and PCs aren't as relevant, the bad guys are going to follow that. The bad guys are smart. They know when it makes sense to switch."

When it comes to security, smartphones share a problem with PCs: Infections are typically the responsibility of the user to fix, if the problem is discovered at all.

The emergence in early July of a previously unknown security hole in Apple Inc.'s iPhones and iPads cast a spotlight on mobile security. Users downloaded a program that allowed them to run unauthorized programs on their devices. But the program could also be used to help criminals co-opt iPhones. Apple has since issued a fix.

It was the second time this year that the iPhone's security was called into question. In April the company changed its handling of location data after a privacy outcry that landed an executive in front of Congress. Researchers had discovered that iPhones stored the data for a year or more in unencrypted form, making them vulnerable to hacking. Apple CEO Steve Jobs emerged from medical leave to personally address the issue.

4 Reasons Google+ Brand Pages Will Be Better Than Facebook's [OPINION]

Zeny Huang is an Emerging Media Strategist at JWT New York where she helps brands connect with fans in innovative and meaningful ways using social media. You can follow her on Twitter @Zenidala.

[More from Mashable: Inviting Your Friends to Google+ Just Got a Lot Easier [INVITES]]

Converting Facebook’s 750 million active users to Google+ will be a long, difficult battle for the search giant. But converting brands to Google+ will be much easier if Google+ is able to solve advertisers’ biggest problems with Facebook -- such as post-click engagement tracking, paid search inefficiencies and limited customization.

Advertisers drive paid media to their Facebook Pages because they want to be where their audience is, but there’s a major flaw in this strategy. Advertisers can’t track post-click engagement of non-Facebook ads driving to Facebook, and that’s a huge disadvantage in qualifying traffic and uncovering valuable user insights. Without such information, we can only guess whether media dollars are being well spent.

[More from Mashable: Social Faceoff: Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Google+ [POLL]]

In a month or two, Google+ will launch its highly anticipated brand pages. Here are four reasons why marketers are right to be excited and why Google+ brand pages will provide a better branded experience than Facebook.

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1. Better Search Opportunites

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A major challenge with driving paid search ads to a Facebook page is that the Facebook.com domain generates a lower click-through rate (CTR), most likely due to people finding the domain irrelevant to their query. The low CTR makes for a low quality score in Google’s auction-model, which typically increases cost per click for paid search ads driving to Facebook versus a unique brand domain. The loss in cost efficiency of driving to a Facebook page has been an ongoing struggle for advertisers, particularly on Google, which has over 60% of the search market.

It would be crazy for search giant Google not to have search benefits for Google+ brand pages, whether it is a “certified check mark” callout (like on Twitter), a colored box around the listing, or possibly page-rank priority. Search benefits would likely be the strongest reason for brands to adopt a Google+ brand page. The only flaw in this theory is that giving brand pages' extra benefits in search could raise the specter of anti-trust action and legal challenges.

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2. More Customization

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Facebook ad types are limited to just ads, sometimes with a video or poll, allowing for few branding or creative opportunities. Looking at the design of Google+ personal pages, I predict the two skyscraper-sized white spaces on each side of the profile will be opportunities for custom skinning of your brand page and for display or rich media ads.

Google+ users are probably cursing me for suggesting the placement of ads on the currently clean design of Google+, but I am speaking specifically about allowing brands to advertise and skin their own pages as seen on branded YouTube channels such as Old Spice and Miracle Whip. These are great examples of how Google+ brand pages can deliver stronger brand experiences and help brands raise awareness of special promotions, as well as letting them drive qualified traffic to pages outside of Google+.

I would not be surprised if advertising opportunities were immediately available after the launch of Google+ brand pages, since Google is fully prepared to support it with its Google Display Network, AdWords and DoubleClick advertising products.

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3. Better Analytics

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People who have used Google Analytics know how detailed the data is, including metrics like time spent on page, top content, referring sites and geographic information. It seems inevitable for Google to integrate Google Analytics into Google+ brand pages, so that brands can gain valuable insights into who their fans are, what content their fans are consuming, and where they are coming from.

All this data will guide brands in the prioritization, organization and creation of content for their page, which will lead to an improved experience that better suits fans’ interests and needs. More importantly, Google Analytics and DoubleClick reporting products will let advertisers tie paid media placements to page interaction, and help to optimize and maximize the value of media spend.

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4. Google Can Learn from Facebook

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Facebook pioneered one-on-one connections between a brand and its fans through social networking, and will continue to be valuable for inherently social brands like musicians and celebrities. But for less social industries such as insurance, health and, say, paper towels, Google+ provides a platform that is open to conversation and focuses on providing branded content and valuable information in one place.

Facebook’s successes and missteps offer invaluable lessons, giving Google second-mover advantage in creating a brand page based on brands’ need for more customization, a hub to aggregate content across the web, strong search presence and user-engagement data. However, if Google+ brand pages turn out to be a replica of Facebook’s, the battle could be over before it’s begun.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: Yahoo

Google, Microsoft goes public with patent spat

NEW YORK (AP) — Tech heavyweights Microsoft and Google are acting like a couple of feuding starlets in a public online spat over — wait for it — patents.

It's not the first time Microsoft and Google have gone at each other's throats, nor is it likely the last.

But with Twitter and blog posts, the dispute is playing out in public in a way that wasn't possible in 2005, when lawsuits over an employee Google hired from Microsoft revealed the bitter rivalry between the two.

Now, Google is accusing Microsoft, Apple and others of launching a "hostile organized campaign" against its Android operating system, which runs smartphones that compete with iPhones, BlackBerrys and Windows-based mobile devices.

At issue are thousands of patents from Novell Inc., a maker of computer-networking software, and Nortel Networks, a Canadian telecom gear maker that is bankrupt and is selling itself off in pieces. Last month, a consortium that includes Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. prevailed over Google Inc. with a $4.5 billion cash bid for the Nortel patents.

Google lost out after a strange bidding process that included what published reports said was an offer for a billion times the mathematical constant "pi."

"Their response seems to be to whine about the process," technology analyst Rob Enderle said.

Enderle was referring to a scathing blog post by Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, who wrote on Wednesday that Microsoft was banding with others to acquire "bogus patents" to make sure Google can't get to them.

"They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices," Drummond wrote. "Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."

Not so fast, says Microsoft, which brought the feud to Twitter. There, Microsoft's communications chief, Frank Shaw, posted an image of an email from Google's general counsel, Kent Walker, declining to join Microsoft in the consortium to bid for the patents.

The email was sent to Microsoft's own general counsel, Brad Smith, who also chimed in. Smith wrote to his 2,000-plus Twitter followers that "Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no."

Shaw offered a reason in another Twitter post: "Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else."

Enderle says it's no secret that Microsoft and Google don't like each other.
Microsoft has banded with another Google rival, Facebook, to include data from the online social network in Microsoft's search engine, Bing. Google can't do that because Facebook erected barriers preventing Google's search engine from indexing all the data on its network.

And earlier this year, Microsoft complained about Google to the European Commission in its first formal antitrust complaint against a rival. Microsoft accused Google of abusing its dominance of online search and advertising.

Then there was the 2005 incident, in which, according to court documents, Microsoft's boisterous CEO, Steve Ballmer, threw a chair and vowed to "kill" Google in an obscenity-laced tirade over the online search leader's hiring of Kai-Fu Lee. Lee helped develop Microsoft's MSN Internet search technology, including desktop search software rivaling Google's. He left the company that July after Google offered him a $10 million compensation package. He has since left Google, too.

So far, the patent feud has lacked obscenities, at least in public.
But the verbal tirade continued Thursday when Drummond updated his blog post to say that Microsoft is trying to divert attention from the real issue and push a "false 'gotcha!'" instead.

"Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners," he wrote.

Enderle says Google needs to grow up, and part of that process is that "they've got to get through the whining stage."

Google had the chance and refused to participate. Now, it is calling the process unfair, Enderle said, "which is something you can do as a little company but probably not when you yourself are a multinational."

Google and Microsoft told The Associated Press that they had no comment beyond the public statements.

Source: Yahoo