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Times are Changing, So Get Out and Vote!
by Steve Norman, JD, SPHR
This month’s newsletter isn’t a political commentary about how you should vote in next week’s election. It is just a reminder of two events coming up in the next few days and some guidelines for preparing for them.
The first is the time change. Sunday morning, October 31st at 2 a.m., people will turn their clocks back one hour everywhere in the country, except Arizona, Hawaii and most of Indiana. How does this affect employers? Those who work overnight shifts may end up receiving an extra hour of pay. For example, assume an employee is normally scheduled to work from 10 p.m. Saturday night to 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning with 30 minutes off for lunch. Because of the time change, if the employee’s schedule is left the same this weekend, he or she will actually work 9 hours that Saturday/Sunday shift. Additionally, the extra hour may end up being counted as overtime if the total time worked in the workweek exceeds 40 hours. In California, the extra hour may be counted as overtime if the total time worked in the workday exceeds 8 hours. For employers who do not want to incur overtime, they can end the shift one hour earlier than normal so that actual work time for employees will remain eight hours.
After the time change, the next event is Election Day on Tuesday. Having the election after the time change is good because it gives all of the undecided voters an extra hour to weigh their choices and select a candidate. For U.S. citizens, the ability to vote is not just a privilege we enjoy, but a right and civic duty. For that reason, nearly every state has a law requiring employers to make sure employees have sufficient time to vote on Election Day. Most states only require that employees have two hours off outside of work hours to vote, but some require as many as three or four hours. If is not possible to schedule an employee’s hours so that he or she has sufficient time to vote, some states even require the employer to give time off with pay.
With most polls opening early and staying open late these days, scheduling sufficient time should not be a problem, but employers should be aware of the specific laws in their states when setting schedules or permitting employees to take time off that day. There are two sites that provide specific information about state voting rules. The sites are the CCH Business Owner’s Toolkit at http://www.toolkit.cch.com/text/P05_4335.asp. Click on your state to find the specific provisions. The other site is the Ford & Harrison law firm at http://www.fordharrison.com/fh/news/articles/20041014time_for_voting.asp. This site has a table that you can scroll through. All of us at HRCentral encourage everyone to exercise their civic duty and vote. As the 2000 presidential election showed, every vote counts.
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Technology Corner: Microsoft .NET - Next Generation Development
by Michael Noland, MCP, Director of Information Technology
So what exactly is Microsoft .NET (“dot net”)? Without getting into the extensive history of the development of operating systems and programming languages, .NET is Microsoft’s attempt to solve all the problems of operating system platforms and development in one complete solution. How successful is this solution? Let’s take a look:
First, .NET is not a new operating system like Windows. It is true that Microsoft referred to Windows Server 2003 by the name Windows .NET prior to its final release, but that was more a reflection of the new direction Microsoft was moving with full support for the Microsoft .NET framework.
Second, .NET is not a programming language. Several programming languages come included with .NET including Visual Basic .NET, C++, C# (pronounced sharp), and J#. Other vendors are creating additional languages for use in .NET such as Borland’s Pascal and Delphi for .NET.
Microsoft .NET is a platform or framework for development. This includes additions or changes to the operating system, and also includes a series of new languages. Microsoft defines .NET as “a set of Microsoft software technologies for connecting information, people, systems, and devices.”
What is a framework, and why is this important? Over the years, the layers between programming and the actual hardware of the computer have slowly increased. In the early years of computers, programmers wrote code that directly interacted with the hardware (disks, video displays, keyboards, printers) of a computer. As computers and computer hardware became more sophisticated, this type of programming became more complex and difficult. For example, imagine trying to write a program that can support all the different brands and models of printers available for a personal computer. To ease this process, more and more of the hardware-specific functionality was moved to the operating system of the computer. Now, to instruct a program to print, you simply told your program to print to the operating system, and let the operating system handle the printing process—using whatever printers were available.
A framework is a set of standards and interfaces for programming. For example, printing—from a program’s perspective—is simply sending text and graphics to a piece of paper. The type of printer is unimportant. Microsoft .NET provides a framework for this type of activity as well as many others including: networking, multimedia (graphics and sound), database connectivity, and file management.
Other development frameworks exist and are in current use including COM (.NET’s predecessor) and Java (created by Sun Microsystems). There are a number of significant differences between these and .NET, but this topic is beyond the scope of this article.
Should I worry about whether or not the software I am investing in is written using the .NET framework? Probably not; for the user, there will be no noticeable difference between software written using the .NET framework vs. using software written in other frameworks. However, Microsoft is moving its full support into .NET, and will gradually phase out support for previous development platforms. Therefore, from a developer’s standpoint, it will be important to eventually adopt the .NET framework for future development projects.
How does Microsoft .NET benefit me or my organization? Microsoft .NET is a new development platform. It provides many benefits to developers including more rapid development, stronger security, better connectivity, and easier implementation. For a general overview of the basic elements of .NET, visit http://www.microsoft.com/net/basics/whatis.asp.
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