TR Out Loud - January 30, 2009

Sonja Thompson: Well, if I thought it was cold LAST week, now we're really having fun in Winter Wonderland! That'll teach me to complain, right?

I'm Sonja Thompson, a senior editor for TechRepublic, and rain, snow, ICE, or shine, I'm here to bring you TROLOV -- or TR Out Loud on Video -- for January 30th, 2009.

If you haven't had a chance to check out the hot discussions this past week, here are the top five -- starting with the most popular, jdclyde. (Some people are "special" and need a little extra help!)

#1. "Is there a place for humor in the job interview?" TechRepublic's Head Blogs Editor, Toni Bowers, is responsible for this post. And it reminds me of my interview for TechRepublic. Ken Hardin, who was a hiring manager at the time, took me to lunch and asked me several questions related to IT. One of those questions was, "Do you know what a thin client is?" I didn't have a clue, and so I improvised and said, "A client that doesn't eat very much?" And I'm still here today!

#2: "Malware scanners: MBAM is best of breed." This post was written by Michael Kassner in the Network Administrator blog. Michael outlines a few reasons why he prefers the MBAM malware scanner, including the fact that it has a very simple user interface.

#3. "Chain e-mails. We don't want them, but what to do?" This post was written by Joe Rosberg, aka Maxwell Edison. Yeah, we all know how irritating chain e-mail can be, but how do you ask good friends or relatives to refrain from sending them to you without being offensive? You might want to take a look at this discussion thread to see how your IT peers handle this situation.

#4. "Firing a bad hire: A real-world story." Benny Sisko is the author of this post in the IT Leadership blog. He recounts a bad hiring decision which he fixed just before the end of the three month probationary period by firing that individual. Benny says, "At best, hiring people is an inexact process. You win some; you lose some." Hopefully you'll be able to learn something from his loss and not make the same mistakes!

#5. "Heads Up!! Community Outage Sunday (Jan. 25th)." TR's moderator, Tammy Cavadias, started this discussion thread, hoping to ward off evil demons and nasty discussions on the site about how everything is broken, nothing works, and TR sucks... but not everybody saw this discussion, and so several threads were started on the boards about this particular event. Yes, we're aware of the issues; yes, we are working on fixing them as quickly as we possibly can; and yes, we do appreciate everyone's patience.

We had quite a nice increase in the Questions forum this past week -- a lot of people jumping in with answers and receiving Thumbs Up! Here are the members who received the most thumbs up over the past week:

Two people tied for 5th place: seanferd and Dumphrey

Three people tied for 4th place: t_mcnally_2001, robo_dev, and Churdoo

#3: Old Mycroft

#2: jdclyde

And two people tied for 1st place: OH Smeg and Jacky Howe

And here are the 5 most active members -- those who have the total number of posts in the past seven days:

#5: boxfiddler

#4: Jacky Howe

#3: seanferd

#2: OH Smeg

And #1: jdclyde

Tammy decided not to come out and play today because she is plum worn out from the community outage and all of those community update bugs that are still crawling around out there.

So, let's move right on to the TR community participation part of the show. First, I'd like to show you all some of the Flip video that I took the morning after the ice storm hit Louisville, Kentucky. A lot of ice, a lot trees down, and a lot of people without electricity. The latest news I read is that it might take until mid-February until all power is restored.

But it wasn't just Louisville that was hit with this ice storm. GSG, who lives in Missouri, sent in this picture, which was taken from a parking garage at her workplace. She said her 45 to 50 minute commute turned into a 2 1/2 hour demolition derby on ice, with the added bonus of trying to make sure you didn't slide off into a ravine.

Jellimonsta took advantage of the weather in Wisconsin to do a little snowboarding. Let's take a look.

Last week's Question of the Week was submitted by Cerebral*Origami: "What can I do to resurrect a love of IT?" 

TR member Al Fleagle said: Join a rugby team!

Tom Trevathan said: Take a break from it if you can. Look at something new. Origami. Painting. Playing the violin. Surfing. Raising show dogs. Sacking groceries. Working with the homeless. You will discover that there are "experts" in any area, and there are folks that are tired of doing that particular thing. Enjoy life, enjoy others. Let your mind and spirit recover.

Buddy Farr said: Taking a few days away is a good thing. Get out and do something fun that is not IT related. But to get back in you need to do something out of the ordinary. Find a non-profit to do some work for that helps the community. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing that what you are doing is in one way or another helping others.

Hal 9000 said: There are only two things you can do when you are sick and tired of your job -- go off, have a holiday, and recharge your batteries, or walk away, never look back, and find a new direction to travel.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'll put the answers in their entirety in the blog notes.

The TR Pet of the Week was sent in by jedmunds. Here's a photo of Mary Frances. Can you do this with your ears?

Many thanks to GSG, Jellimonsta, Al Fleagle, Tom Trevathan, Buddy Farr, Hal 9000, and jedmunds for participating in the show. To collect your swag, please shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address and swag item of choice.

To earn your own TechRepublic swag, all you have to do is send me a Question of the Week, a comment about the show, photos, or even a small video clip to trol@cnet.com. If you'd rather call in, we have that option available as well. Our toll free number is (866) 414-CNET, that's (866) 414-2638 -- or you can leave a voice message via Skype, and our Skype ID is tr.out.loud.

I'm Sonja Thompson, and this is TR Out Loud.