gregoryyoung is the Page Editor for VB.NET and C#. Over the past eight years he has worked in various fields including pari-mutual wagering, drug/law enforcement, point of sale systems, and satellite imagery.

The holiday season offers a particularly difficult time for the IT industry. The office is in a clamor with parties, people trying to get their plans taken care of, and of course, year end deadlines. I can assure you that when people go to sleep on Christmas Eve that it will not be thoughts of pager support dancing in their heads. It can be particularly difficult to manage any processes during this period; while there is no real effective way to mitigate these issues, the holiday season can easily be turned into an opportunity.

The healthy IT department revolves heavily around key knowledge workers who are both the backbone and the brains of the operation. These people are invaluable to the success of the department as a whole and are far from being replaceable. This holiday season why not take the opportunity to further your relationship with these individuals and to help build their loyalty to your organization?

Place yourself into the role of a 20-something year old software engineer or network engineer who could easily work at fifteen different companies in your city. Chances are that salaries are within fifteen to thirty per cent of what you're paying him, but this is rather irrelevant as he probably maintains a reasonably good standard of living. He (or she) stays with your company either out of loyalty to the organization or because he truly enjoys what he is doing. This employee is ideal to recognize.

Christmas Bonus!

While Christmas bonuses are wonderful, they show little care on the part of the organization. This year try something different. Lower the bonus amount by $100 and try spending some time instead. Go and buy each of your employees something that is targeted directly at them as individuals. This gift will go much further in bolstering inter-office and corporate employee relations than the additional $100 in a bonus could possibly do.

You may be saying to yourself, "I don't know these people well enough to get them something personal". That is a sign of a much more severe problem in your organization. Your people are your department's most valuable asset; without them the servers would not run and the code would fall into disarray.

Take the time to know your employees! Is John a football fan? What is John's favorite team or player? A jersey or an autographed item can be the wonderful gift that shows you know John. Does Mary enjoy bicycling on her weekends? What would be useful for her? Is she missing any useful equipment? Perhaps you could get her office friend Ellen to collude with you in finding out!

The point here is to get items the person would probably not get for themselves but would enjoy and to avoid work-related items! IT is one of the most stressful areas in a company and research has shown that many people in IT are more susceptible to health problems. Since your knowledge workers are the life blood of your department, foster stress management through relaxation for them! This is not a zero sum game; it is in both your and the employees' best interest.

Knowledge workers and employers are forced to form a weird symbiotic relationship where everyone can stay happy. Often this entails the worker doing things that he or she may prefer not to, like wearing reasonable dress to the office. It is important to note that the employer is often forced to make some sacrifices in order to foster the creativity and loyalty of these workers in a competitive market. If you don't believe me, take a look at some of the things Google does for its employees.

Oh... and if you happen to be shopping for me *wink*, I enjoy the Baltimore Ravens, deep sea fishing, and of course odd technology bits.

Greg Young

This is a list of some of the more entertaining sites we've found, if you're looking for a unique holiday gift. Sure, there's Amazon, and eBay, and Barnes & Noble, but these are a lot more fun.

• The Discovery Channel has a ton of gifts that are especially good for children.
• ThinkGeek has stuff that's a lot of fun -- but check out the action shots of the stapler.
• MIT's $100 laptop isn't for sale yet, but a donation to the cause is good karma.
• The Tech Museum has a few things you'll find elsewhere -- and a few you won't.
• Panera Bread has gift certificates, great sandwiches and soups, and truly free WiFi access.
• BleepLabs make some little boxes that make weird sounds. We don't know what else they do, though.
• The Beer Belly is perfect for your sister's not-particularly-charming second husband.
• Beverages and More has wine, baskets, gift cards, but check the cell phone flask under Accessories.
• Tiger Direct has everything a technophile could want -- and low prices.

MHenry is the Page Editor for the Macromedia topic areas. He has three kids, which makes him an Expert on the uses of couches.

Every once in a while, you run across something so silly it's just plain fun. Such is the case at http://www.sinua.de/.

But first, in a preamble sort of way, let's consider the sofa. It is, and ought to be, the most significant piece of furniture you own outside of a bed and maybe a kitchen table. The sofa is critical when entertaining guests as well as an excellent place to stretch out when you are trying to avoid doing the yard work. And outside of a car, it's probably where most of us sat when first snuggling up to a member of the opposite sex.

"Ich bin hier und du bist mein sofa." Not just one, but two songs were written by Frank Zappa appropriately titled Sofa No.1 and Sofa No.2. "I am here, and you are my sofa." "All your sofa are belong to us."

"This is a four thousand dollar sofa upholstered in Italian silk. This is not 'just a couch'," from Annette Bening's character in American Beauty.

I don't think there were any sofa references in Casablanca or Take the Money and Run, but I have people checking into it.

And there you have it. I think I've made an adequate case for considering the sofa in a new light. Which is why you need to visit http://www.sinua.de/ and view the video presentation of their Interactive Sofa. Editor's Note: Unless you speak German, click English, and then click Projects. It's the first one.

There are several thousand uses for this sofa of which, I can only recall two. First, it will help me keep my New Year's resolution to lose weight. When I'm home, I'm on the sofa most of the time anyway. The interactive Sofa may help me keep more active.

Second, as mentioned above, the sofa is one of the first places we cozy up to the opposite sex. As the father of a 17-year-old daughter, I can see this sofa coming in quite handy. As long as I'm hearing the sound of Pong, I don't have to be worrying about hearing any other sounds.

These guys at Sinua are having way too much fun. It's great to see people enjoying their work so much. I also recommend viewing the video titled "The sensitive carpet." I'm thinking I need one of those for the MiniVan.

Best wishes for the holiday season.

There are two things that are constants at this time of the year: guests, and phishing attempts. The old joke says that guests are like fish -- after three days they stink -- but the P-H phish stinks a lot worse. My other half and I each got an email, supposedly from eBay, last week. They were both attempts to phish, but they're a little unique, so beware.

Mine appeared to be a complaint lodged by someone to whom I had supposedly sold something, but hadn't delivered it. I've never tried to sell anything through eBay, but that's beside the point. What's important is that the email appeared to be legitimate -- all the links were in places you'd expect them to be. But when you moused over the links, you could see that they linked to an IP address somewhere that was definitely not eBay.

My husband's was even more sneaky. If you've ever sold anything on eBay, you know that a potential bidder can write to you and ask a question. Well, this question was about a Pioneer Plasma TV he supposedly has for sale (no wonder, since one wouldn't fit in our living room anyway). If you click on any link, you wind up at what looks like eBay's login page, and almost all of the links go to the actual eBay pages. But if you actually "log in", you wind up sending your username and password to some yokel in Louisiana.

Which brings up something I saw the other day. A study by AOL (go figure) and the National Cyber Security Alliance (whoever they are) says that one of every four computer users gets hit by a phishing attempt each month. Doh!. What's really scary is that seventy per cent of the people surveyed thought the scam attempts were from legitimate companies.

No doubt all of this is good news to computer repair people everywhere.