Welcome to the Gigabyte World

  In 1986, Anthony C Batson started Gigabyte Consulting and Security, doing contract work on computers and other electronic devices. After six years of hardware support for my friends, family and several small companies, Anthony C Batson enrolled in Basic, Fortran and Cobol, Computer Programming Classes at Miller- Motte Technical College.   

In 1993, Anthony C Batson enrolled in the Machine Technology Operation and Programming Curriculum at Cape Fear Community College.  Anthony C Batson implemented, configured and maintained most of the Microsoft Server Products, including Exchange, IIS, DNS, WINS, DHCP Servers. This training and experience has given me a broad and versatile knowledge of the latest technology and allowed me to provide superior support in today’s technology dependent world.    

In August of 1996, Anthony C Batson began working as the Manufacturing Design Engineer, for Answermatic Corporation. Staff changes gave me the opportunity to take on the additional responsibility of Computer and Network Support Technician. This new assignment included support for serial and token-ring connected computers. A complete re-design of the company’s network was required, including re-configuring four CNC machines and corresponding workstations to communicate and transfer data.  This project was completed with minimal production time lost. The company, Ansermatic Inc., was sold and moved to New Jersey in January 2000. Anthony C Batson was given the opportunity to relocate to New Jersey, however, family matters would not allow a move out of state at that time   

In 1999, Anthony C Batson began MCSE+I Training at Soft-Train Technical School. This training was invaluable in my next employment opportunity with Miller Building Corporation. Miller, one of the largest construction companies in North Carolina, needed a System Administrator. Anthony C Batson was hired as their IT Manager responsible for (1) Exchange Servers, (7) File & Print Servers (2) W2K IIS, (2) W2K Terminal Server & (2) AS400’s.

In May of 2000, Anthony C Batson was asked to provide a solution that would bring all their computers and their network system to a higher productive level. The goal was to combine an AS400 with a Microsoft Database Package, which could be used over a Secure WAN Network. The programs “CMS” on the AS400 and “Project Manger” installed on a Microsoft NT4 Server needed to be setup for database sharing over the network. At the beginning of the project the data transfer was un-useable due to the transfer rate between the two systems. Implementation of a multi-homed network with specific routing tables for data transmission across the network allowed the two programs to share data and increased productivity. The next step of the project was to provide access to the new project management software for Miller’s three corporate offices and five small remote offices. At project start, Miller Building used a BTI Frame Network and RAS as their connection for all corporate and remote users. Anthony C Batson proposed, configured and installed a VPN over WAN solution that provided the necessary bandwidth and reliability needed to access the new project management software for all users on the corporate network, at all eight locations, using a Terminal Server Environment. To provide a strong Disaster Recovery Solution for the project management data, a SAN was setup to replicate data to all the corporate offices. Using the VPN over WAN and Veritas Storage Replicator provided a stable and reliable Disaster Recovery Solution for all project management data and other critical corporate data. In March of 2002 Miller Building Corporation went out of business.          

Anthony C Batson concentration returned to building the client base for my company, Gigabyte Consulting and Security, and Anthony C Batson continued Microsoft 2000 Server training. During this period Anthony C Batson was privileged to work with a variety of companies and computer systems.   

In May of 2003, Anthony C Batson accepted the position of AS400 System Administrator / POS, Network and Desktop Support Professional with Reeds Jewelers. Having AS400 experience, gained though my employment with Miller Building Corporation, Anthony C Batson was asked to provide a consistent, and reliable backup and support procedures for the daily operation of the AS400, Windows Servers and Network activity at the corporate office. Anthony C Batson was able to reduce process time by consolidating programs and data storage into a single point data management solution.  After analyzing their current network solution, Anthony C Batson proposed and implemented an integrated Windows 2003 Blade Server into their AS400. This provided a secure, reliable and productive means to secure mission critical data. It allowed all AS400 and Microsoft data to be stored on a Microsoft 2003 Data Center Server that was backed up by Veritas Backup Exec. Data Recovery and Disaster Protection security for mission critical data was greatly improved. As networks grow there becomes a need to update equipment and security. Another of my implementation projects was the upgrade of the Firewall, Virus and Email Security Protection. Anthony C Batson implemented an upgrade of the current Firewall, to an in-house managed appliance, that would allow more control and faster response time, in the invent that changes to security or routing were needed. The installation of a Sonicwall VPN/Firewall, with built-in Virus, Spam and Email filtering, provided a single point monitoring interface. Remote users dial-in to RAS was inefficient and costly before the implementation of the SonicWall VPN/Firewall Appliance. The VPN Appliance provided remote users with a high speed secure connection to the corporate network and decreased operation cost, by eliminating the need for dedicated access lines.

 If information is power, then most employees who enter salary negotiations are holding pea shooters while the boss is encased in a Kevlar vest.

Unless someone left a spreadsheet of the company’s salaries on the copier (funny how often that does happen), most employees have precious little ammunition going into a meeting to talk about their pay.

A few Web sites try to level the playing field by providing more detailed information about salaries. Salary.com began revealing the results of salary surveys on its site in 1999. PayScale.com is now challenging it by gathering information directly from the people who search for data. (A third site, Payscroll.com, is testing a method of trolling job listings for salary information. It will be opened to the public this month or next.)

New Internet technologies are providing information that has never been available to the average person and transforming the way they sell homes or buy airline tickets. It could have the same effect on the 47 million people who look for new jobs each month and the countless others who think they are underpaid at the ones they have.

Jessica Morrison, who wrote advertising copy for Drugstore.com in Seattle, was one of those. After five years at the company and several promotions, her title was associate editor even though she had the same duties as a copywriter, a loftier title. She also suspected that at $42,000 a year, she was paid a lot less than someone else with her duties.

She checked PayScale, and its free report that compares her pay with others holding a similar job title said that someone with her experience should be making $50,000 to $60,000. Then she went to see her manager. “I was a little nervous going in, but I had done my research,” Ms. Morrison, 27, said. She got the title she wanted and a raise to within the pay range she suggested. “If I had gone in without the information, the conversation would have been, ‘I feel like I am not making enough money,’ ” Ms. Morrison said.

More extensive salary surveys are done for corporations, but a regular employee could not hope to buy the information from any of the other major compensation companies like the Hay Group or Mercer. “We wouldn’t give it to you,” said Iain Fitzpatrick, general manager of the reward information service division of Hay. The compensation companies do not want their information being used against bosses negotiating salaries. “The last thing we want is for a client to say, ‘We just had a conversation with an employee who was quoting Hay data,’ ” Mr. Fitzpatrick said.

Unlike Salary.com, which obtains its information from a variety of surveys of corporate human resource departments, PayScale collects the information directly from people seeking the data. If you want PayScale’s salary information, first you will have to tell them what you make. A basic report is free, but the company charges $20 for a more detailed analysis.

PayScale, which supplies its data to job listing sites like CareerBuilder.com, Jobster.com and SimplyHired.com, says it uses search engine technology and a rules-based algorithm to match requests for data in a database of 5.5 million profiles.

Executives at Salary.com, which provides its data to job boards at America Online, Yahoo, HotJobs.com and Monster.com, take issue with the new approach. Their survey found 96 percent of human resources departments do not trust user-reported data. William Coleman, senior vice president for compensation at Salary.com, said, “People get information wrong.” He said they often did not understand what benefits or bonuses they were getting, so he considered any self-reporting to be suspect.

But Joe Giordano, the founder, chairman and also vice president for product development at PayScale, said its information was accurate. “People come onto PayScale with no incentive to lie because they want high-quality information,” he said.

The company checks the information for inconsistencies, tossing out extremes. It said that about 50 percent of submissions were not included, but that it got enough, about 300,000 a month, that no single filing could influence the overall result. “We collect more in one day than some companies collect in a year,” said Michael Metzger, the chief executive.

It takes about six minutes to fill in its questionnaire. PayScale asks for your title, the number of years in the field and your city. It then asks you to better define your job. If you said software programmer, it wants to know what kind of programmer and what programming languages you know. People in professions with a profusion of titles are asked more questions.

Finally, it asks you questions about your employer, your education, and, of course, your salary and benefits.

Then it computes the results and displays them on a graph so you can see the range. A senior software engineer in Silicon Valley with 20 years of experience makes $88,531 to $106,364. A benefits claims examiner in Indianapolis, who has been on the job for a decade, makes $41,122 to $54,821.

Although Salary.com argues that its paid results are more accurate, its free Salary Wizard tool yields results that can barely differ: for example, a range of $84,289 to $107,711 for the programmer and $40,091 to $52,942 for the examiner.

PayScale, which gets about a third of the traffic that Salary.com does, says it has information on jobs not usually found in corporate salary surveys like pornographic film actor (average salary: $63,275), rabbi (average salary: $98,610) and crossing guard (average hourly wage: $9.21), but so far no chick sexers, mimes or bloggers are in its roster. “We don’t get many boiler makers, but we get the jobs that are out there in volume,” Mr. Giordano said.

PayScale data also say that a chief executive in New York City averages $248,278. When you stop laughing, it quickly becomes apparent what the big problem with this site is. It is most accurate where it has lots of data. The company acknowledges that it is very good with high-tech jobs, health care and nonprofits because a lot of people from those professions have visited the site and filled out the questionnaire.

Only 22 chief executives in New York City have bothered, and none apparently clocked more than a mere $235 an hour. “It is only as good as what people are contributing,” said James Holincheck, a research vice president at Gartner who follows the compensation industry. (Salary.com’s result was a bit more realistic: a range of $417,459 to $1,266,936.)

But the sites are meant for the average person, not titans of finance and industry.

“It’s like the Kelly Blue Book for compensation,” Mr. Giordano said. Like that reference manual for used-car prices, the salary sites give you a good idea of where to start the negotiations confidently.

Persuading the boss you need more money demands more than a report from an online service. You have to think about the kind of company that employs you. A start-up might pay lower salaries because employees have a chance to make a killing on options when it goes public or is sold. Some companies have a policy of high turnover, so raises are rarely in the offing.

Mr. Coleman suggests that people think about quality-of-life issues, as well as the money. For instance, sometimes it is easier for an employer to give an additional week of vacation rather than a 2 percent raise. A workweek condensed into four days might hold some value even though you will work no less — and probably will work more. “Money isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing,” he said.

If you want more detailed information on multiple job offers in different regions, PayScale charges $20. Salary.com charges $30 to $100 for detailed reports depending on the level of the position.

Both sites offer advice and scores of ways to parse the information they have collected. Salary.com measures the salary of a stay-at-home mom. (The statisticians calculated that doing the housekeeping, cooking, babysitting, chauffeuring, administration and other jobs involved in staying at home with a preschooler in Chicago would probably take around 91 hours a week and be worth about $146,000.) Pay-Scale finds that based on the answers to a question it asks about commutes, for example, a store manager in Seattle gets to work 17 minutes faster than one in New York City. That has to be worth something.

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(Wilmington, NC, March 2007) –  The YWCA will offer two TechGYRLS workshops beginning in March at the YWCA, 2815 South College Road.  TechGYRLS provides an environment for girls (age 9-13) to become interested in and empowered by technology. 

A TechGYRLS workshop will begin on March 12, 2007 at 3:30 pm.  A Lego Robotics workshop will be offered on March 13, 2007 at 3:30 pm.  Both workshops involve individual and group projects and help develop communication, critical thinking, time management, and presentation skills.

The goal of TechGYRLS is to broaden girls’ knowledge and interests and to help them develop the confidence to use technology tools in whatever profession they pursue.

Space is limited!  For more information on TechGYRLS contact Jill Parson at the YWCA at 799-6820, ext. 106 or accounting@ywca-lowercapefear.org.

Facts
By the time today’s youth reach adulthood, the demand for men and women with high technical skills will have increased tenfold.  However, women who make up half of the workforce are only about 20% of all IT professionals.

Women make up just 9% of the engineering-related degrees.

Women who choose non-traditional careers can expect to have lifetime earning that are 150% that of other women.

Women receive less than 28% of the computer science bachelor’s degrees, down from 37% in 1984.  This is the only field in which women’s participation has decreased over time.

While girls and boys have the same aptitude for technology and sciences, by middle school participation rates for girls in technology subjects begin to drop and decline through high school.  This is especially true for girls in low income, underserved communities.