Meet Top Employers in Seattle on July 21st!

Whether you are looking for a better job, re-entering the workforce or are just starting your career, this is your chance to meet face-to-face with Fortune 500 companies and the fastest growing businesses in your area. Bring lots of resumes because these employers are here to meet you! See Seattle Career Fair: Thursday, July 21st for more information.

Master Business Application

Interested in starting a business of your own in Washington state? Here are a few necssary links:

Business License FAQs: "I'm planning to start a new business in Washington. What are the first steps I should take?" See
Business checklist for new ownership

It is important to know what type of business structure you will have, as well as where you will conduct business - for example, see
City of Bellevue Licenses for more information - and fees.

Once your set, see What to do next... Special note: according to the Master Business Application: "Who Needs a License?"

You need a license unless you meet ALL of the following criteria:

• Your business grosses less than $12,000 per year;
• Your business does not sell any item at retail;
• Your business does not perform any service for which retail sales tax must be charged;
• Your business is not required to collect or pay any other tax which the Department of Revenue collects (e.g. use tax, forest tax, public utility tax, etc.);
• Your business is not required to obtain any renewable or regulatory license with the Master License Service;
• You do not have or plan to have employees within the next 90 days; AND
• You work only under your legal name and do not use a separate firm name or 'doing business as' name.

Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions

A great new opportunity to try out a new version of a great product - see Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions to download the beta. FYI: Launch date for this as well as the new SQL and BizTalk Servers have been set for November 7 - see Microsoft PressPass for more information

Jobberrnaut Career Fairs

Jobberrnaut Career Fairs in Seattle! Parking for only $5.00 (with no in/out privileges).

World of Warcraft Keeps Growing, Even as Players Test Its Limits

Study break: the New York Times reports that World of Warcraft Keeps Growing, Even as Players Test Its Limits - amazing!

FYI: World of Warcraft (Wow) IS the Game of the Year for 2004, according to Gamespot. Just watch the movies! Visit the Official Site, as well as a plethora of fan-sites (e.g., Thottbot, World of War) - see WoW - a beginners guide for a start into the game...

Master of Science in Information Management

Want a Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM)? Look to MSIM Application Requirements - Information School at the University of Washington - a great program, especially if you can get a GSA (Graduate Student Assistantship), which will defer your tuition!

Contact Melissa Weaver for more information on the GSA. Contact the Office of Student and Academic Services (OSAS) for Lindsay Boswell (program coordinator) at 206-543-3172, or visit the iSchool Office of Student and Academic Services for advising. Finally for more information, the best thing to do is sign-up for one of the many Email Lists at the Information School, in particular iStuJobs for student job opportunities.

Go to the On-Line Graduate Application to begin applying. Once completed, visit The Information School Graduate Application to check status.

FYI: Visit Get GRE Scores, call GRE Scores By Phone at 1-888-473-7267, or call GRE customer service at 866-473-4373.

Text-To-Speech

Text-To-Speech (TTS) has certainly come of age, since the early days of "Danger Will Robinson"! See TTS Interactive Demo and give AT&T Natural Voices a try! If you feel like buying it, then visit

If you need a reason to use it, then visit NextUp.com, home to various "Text Aloud" products. Also see the free FeedSpeaker which will read your various RSS feeds.

For a downloadable demo voice of comprable quality, visit Babel Technologies and try-out their BrightSpeech voices - download Heather for a 30 days free trial licence!

For more information, see discussion thread at the HomeSeer Message Board as well as the Sprague WebLog (Speech recognition at Microsoft). For fun, try out Speegle - google with speech!

The job forecast: partly cloudy

The job forecast: partly cloudy - from two years ago - has it changed by much? Hard to say, with articles like Job outlook better, not rosy which seems to share the same cautious optimism...

At the very least, "...2005 will represent only another year of progress in our recovery. It will not be a 'normal' labor market for job seekers. We will not be back to 'normal' until 2008 because only then will jobs, relative to population, be back to where they were before the recession."

There are a few bright spots though: in particular, "Health care has seen no lost jobs, so it looked spectacular...it's just solid." Also, software engineers in applications positions are expected to grow by about 4,000 by 2012 - "the former glamour industries will not be the engines of growth in 2005."