TimesOnline has a handy article up on how you can get a pay rise. Below is the summary:

1. Put yourself in your manager’s shoes. Ask yourself why you are worth that much to your boss. Addressing the issue from his or her perspective will allow you to formulate a more persuasive pitch.
2. Understand what the salary norms are for the job role and industry that you are working in. Think about your salary in terms of roles and responsibilities, not designations.
3. Do not compare yourself with the other person. Focus on your individual performance, competencies and experience in the job.
4. Be noted that your pay rise is dependent on what you have actually achieved, not on how much effort you have put up.

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IRCatWork.com (was using CGI::IRC) has been purchased by Mibbit, a web based IRC client that uses Ajax. Mibbit allows us to connect to multiple IRC servers and multiple channels (in a server), has tabbed layout, nick completion on tab key press, input history (up down arrows), PM support. In short, everything that a stand-alone IRC client like mIRC provides except the logging facility (understandably) and the channel flashing upon nick mention.

Mibbit provides these servers by default (the most commonly used ones are bolded): Mibbit, Freenode, irc.icq.com, irc.slashnet.org, irc.oftc.net, blitzed.org, efnet.net, Chatterbox UK, Foonetic, WyldRyde, Justin.tv, bitlbee

You can also connect to any other IRC server not in the list by selecting ‘Other server…’ and specifying the server name along with port, like so: irc.ircsuper.net:6667

Here are the most commonly used commands in IRC that will work at Mibbit:

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If you are reading this, chances are that you already know what SMF is. If not, here you go. Quoting from their homepage:

Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

SMF is the best free forum script in our opinion.

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This tutorial explains the steps using which you can install phpESP on your site. It is a free PHP/MySQL script for survey management. The installation document that comes with it gives more info than is needed, is aimed at those who have shell access and kind of makes it unnecessarily complicated for those of us who know FTPing, what a MySQL database is and how to use phpMyAdmin.

phpESP lets non-technical users create surveys, administer surveys, gather results, view statistics. All managed online after database initialization.

Official Demo: http://phpesp.sourceforge.net/demo/admin/manage.php

Current latest version: 2.0.2

Below are the installation instructions for phpESP:

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There are software programs like Launchy using which you can launch applications by typing the first few letters of the program name and hitting the return key. Once you start using these, you’ll realize that we can save the space that start menu takes up. So we started looking for a small program that will hide the start menu button yet makes menu itself available upon pressing the windows key. A free program called Start Killer by Tordex does the job.

Here’s how we hide the start menu and yet easily launch any desired program:

1. Set up FARR
2. Run Start Killer

Find And Run Robot

Find And Run Robot or FARR in its short form is a free program by DonationCoder that will display a small floating text box in which you type the name of the program you want to launch and press a number on your keyboard or use your arrow keys to move up/down and press the return key. We find it better compared to other similar solutions like Launchy because:

• We can press a number from the results list to launch a program
• It makes available a newly installed program much faster
• It has more advanced features

To get started with FARR,

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