Welcome to www.minisinbox.com

Can Facebook or MySpace Help You Land a Job? The Internet is quickly becoming the vehicle of choice for people looking for a job and for employers looking for people to hire. There are many job sites on the Internet dedicated to matching up employees and employers, and most people turn to the Internet today when they are hunting for a job instead of turning to the classified ads in the local paper. Job hunting websites may all be well and good when you are looking for a job, but what about social networking sites. Everyone knows how popular sites like Facebook and MySpace are online, but can they help you get a job? If you are in the job market, can these sites be your foot in the door, or a one way ticket to the unemployment line? The answer is that there is no easy answer. To know if you can find a job using Facebook or MySpace, you have to know how employers feel about these sites, and employers have mixed feeling about them. Some companies are actively using social networking sites to track down employees that meet their company’s employee profile and have had great success finding workers via social networking sites. Other companies wouldn’t touch these sites as a hiring tool with a ten-foot poll – in fact, many companies don’t even want you to access these websites from their company computers. The real answer to this question has more to do with exactly what kind of job you are looking for. Are you looking for an executive position at a company? Then stay off of the social networking sites, at least for job hunting (and maybe all together). No company is going to look for its top brass on a social networking site, and you will be wasting your time. However, if you are looking for entry level or hourly wage work, the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook may be the answer for you. Many hourly wage employers in particular, like fast food restaurant chains and mall stores, use MySpace and Facebook to look for potential employees in their area. If a potential employer sees your profile and thinks you may be a good fit for their company, they will send you an email or an instant message and get the ball rolling. You should also, however, carefully consider the downsides of using social networking sites as a job tool – and you should carefully consider how and if you use these sites at all if you are in the market for a new job. Most people wouldn’t want their parents to see their social networking site profile, let alone potential employers. If you have rude and off color material, political or religious material, and inappropriate photos of yourself on your profile, a potential employer will be turned off, and you might lose your chance at that job. Most people give up way too much of their privacy when they use these kinds of sites, and your social networking site profile may offer a window into a side of you an employer might not be overly impressed with. Further, you can open yourself up to danger by using these sites to job hunt. If someone approached you in the street and offered you a job, would you accept? Then why would you accept a face value an approach by someone on social networking site? If you do get approached for an interview, never meet anyone in a private place, and do your homework to make sure the facts check out before you go for the interview. One last reality check – there are over 60 million users on MySpace alone. How will an employer find you in the crowd? MySpace and Facebook may help you in your job hunt, but don’t count on them as your sole avenue into the job market.

Web Hosting - The Internet and How It Works In one sense, detailing the statement in the title would require at least a book. In another sense, it can't be fully explained at all, since there's no central authority that designs or implements the highly distributed entity called The Internet. But the basics can certainly be outlined, simply and briefly. And it's in the interest of any novice web site owner to have some idea of how their tree fits into that gigantic forest, full of complex paths, that is called the Internet. The analogy to a forest is not far off. Every computer is a single plant, sometimes a little bush sometimes a mighty tree. A percentage, to be sure, are weeds we could do without. In networking terminology, the individual plants are called 'nodes' and each one has a domain name and IP address. Connecting those nodes are paths. The Internet, taken in total, is just the collection of all those plants and the pieces that allow for their interconnections - all the nodes and the paths between them. Servers and clients (desktop computers, laptops, PDAs, cell phones and more) make up the most visible parts of the Internet. They store information and programs that make the data accessible. But behind the scenes there are vitally important components - both hardware and software - that make the entire mesh possible and useful. Though there's no single central authority, database, or computer that creates the World Wide Web, it's nonetheless true that not all computers are equal. There is a hierarchy. That hierarchy starts with a tree with many branches: the domain system. Designators like .com, .net, .org, and so forth are familiar to everyone now. Those basic names are stored inside a relatively small number of specialized systems maintained by a few non-profit organizations. They form something called the TLD, the Top Level Domains. From there, company networks and others form what are called the Second Level Domains, such as Microsoft.com. That's further sub-divided into www.Microsoft.com which is, technically, a sub-domain but is sometimes mis-named 'a host' or a domain. A host is the name for one specific computer. That host name may or may not be, for example, 'www' and usually isn't. The domain is the name without the 'www' in front. Finally, at the bottom of the pyramid, are the individual hosts (usually servers) that provide actual information and the means to share it. Those hosts (along with other hardware and software that enable communication, such as routers) form a network. The set of all those networks taken together is the physical aspect of the Internet. There are less obvious aspects, too, that are essential. When you click on a URL (Uniform Resource Locator, such as http://www.microsoft.com) on a web page, your browser sends a request through the Internet to connect and get data. That request, and the data that is returned from the request, is divided up into packets (chunks of data wrapped in routing and control information). That's one of the reasons you will often see your web page getting painted on the screen one section at a time. When the packets take too long to get where they're supposed to go, that's a 'timeout'. Suppose you request a set of names that are stored in a database. Those names, let's suppose get stored in order. But the packets they get shoved into for delivery can arrive at your computer in any order. They're then reassembled and displayed. All those packets can be directed to the proper place because they're associated with a specified IP address, a numeric identifier that designates a host (a computer that 'hosts' data). But those numbers are hard to remember and work with, so names are layered on top, the so-called domain names we started out discussing. Imagine the postal system (the Internet). Each home (domain name) has an address (IP address). Those who live in them (programs) send and receive letters (packets). The letters contain news (database data, email messages, images) that's of interest to the residents. The Internet is very much the same.

Working Smarter – Planting Seeds to Earn Employee of the Year To be awarded with the employee of the year and maybe even having your own plaque posted on the wall is the highest of rewards for some employees. With all the competition in the workplace, becoming the employee of the year is not an easy task. One of the first steps to becoming employee of the year is to be a good worker. Being a good worker actually includes lots of different strategies. A good worker is always on time and never leaves early without permission. Of great benefit to you as well as to others is to make sure that you have a pleasant attitude and lots of motivation. The lack of motivation in a workplace can slow down productivity immensely and if your boss sees that you are one major motivator in your department, a small seed towards that plaque is already planted. A good worker is also very well organized and works in an efficient manner. Efficiency with high quality results is a great combination to add more seeds to sprout your career and reach your goal of being the employee of the year. In some companies there is an employee awarded every month. The employee of the month gets awarded for his outstanding work and contribution to the company over the course of the month. Sometimes to become the employee of the year, you need to get several or the most of the employee of the month awards. But since you are trying to be the employee of the year, you must already try to be the best employee every month. You should have a chance for one or more of the monthly awards. Becoming employee of the months is one important seed to harvest your crop, the employee of the year award. Often times, it also helps to have a good relationship to your boss. A relationship of mutual respect, somebody your boss can rely on, likes to exchange ideas and just plain small talk with, are all important. Become his ally and best worker, but do not over do it. Sometimes in the effort to become employee of the year, you try too hard to be somebody you are not in order to show off in front of everybody and forget that working in a businesslike or industrial setting also means teamwork. Try to be a leader and show respect for others at your workplace. If you are just trying to take away work and glory from others, you will soon be the person nobody wants to go to. To become the employee of the year, you need to be a resource for others, help with their daily problems and most of all, respect them and recognize their accomplishments. If you are working in the team, everybody needs to feel welcome and feel like he or she is contributing. As you can see, just doing the most work will not get you the employee of the year reward. Accomplishing many other things at the same time is just as important as the amount of work you correctly and timely deliver. That is why the process of getting awarded is more like planting seeds in the field and seeing them sprout. It is not just one action; it takes many different actions to become the employee of the year. Possibly one of the most important facts at the end of the year-- do not expect that it is you that gets the award. Be humble, think of others that did also tremendous amounts of work and tried to be motivated throughout the year. Do not be disappointed if it is not you.