"The Devil Wears Prada" is a thinly veiled tell-all about a young assistant’s nightmarish experience working for an abominable boss at a high-fashion magazine. The story is popular because it’s entertaining, but also because it resonates with workers of the world who have all toiled at one time or another for bosses they were certain were the devil incarnate. IT departments are not immune; from the company’s favored employee who gets promoted up the ladder with virtually no knowledge of tech, to the tech guru with no managerial skills, therein lies a myriad of IT managers and CIOs who seem destined to make life in their departments miserable. eWEEK sponged two authors and workplace consultants for everything they knew about bad bosses, from the different types to how to handle each, to when to fold your cards and high-tail it out of there.

The US Department of Transportation has announced that a laptop computer containing names, addresses and social security numbers of 133,000 Florida residents was stolen two weeks ago. According to a letter sent to Congress on August 9, the theft of the laptop happened on July 27 in Doral, FL, a suburb of Miami. The theft was reported to the DOT Inspector General on July 31. The information on the missing laptop included people in Miami-Dade County who hold commercial drivers licenses, Florida residents who have pilot’s licenses and people who got their Florida drivers licenses from a facility in Largo.

IBM announced an agreement to acquire FileNet, a leading provider of enterprise content management software, at a price of approximately $1.6 billion or $35.00 per share. FileNet marks the 20th acquisition supporting IBM’s Information on Demand initiative, a major growth opportunity for IBM’s software and consulting units that IBM launched on February 16, 2006 and backed by approximately $1 billion in IBM R&D investments. The goal of Information on Demand is to help customers take better advantage of all types of information–regardless of format, platform or location–and put it to use to improve their business processes, quickly respond to market needs or rapidly identify new opportunities.

A job listing like this only comes around once in a very long while, so we feel it’s our responsibility to pass it on. Royal Caribbean International, one of the world’s largest travel brands and parent company of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Celebrity Cruises, has announced it will be hiring for a broad range of information technology positions located at what they report is a state-of-the-art facility.

The company is seeking IT professionals ranging from WebSphere Engineers and Oracle Database Administrators to Shipboard Communications Engineers. Most hires will work from the company’s corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida with other positions destined for its Kansas and Oregon offices. Applicants wishing to apply should visit the employment area of Royal Caribbean’s website. And if you get the job, remember to invite your favorite editors on your next big cruise outing!

A booby-trapped game of noughts and crosses has been used to show how a Blackberry can be hijacked to steal confidential data. Created by a security researcher the game contains malicious code that turns the popular mobile email device into a backdoor into corporate networks. Dubbed "blackjacking" the technique is thought to be the first to try to take advantage of the Blackberry. The creator of the hijack code intends to release it publicly in mid-August.

Rising wages won’t be enough to topple India from its throne as the destination of choice for IT offshoring. In fact, Indian firms will continue to take business from their competitors simply because they have a better business model.

Nurturing a co-worker to replace you as CIO might seem like you’re grooming yourself right out of a job, but in reality, it’s a very smart career move. A growing number of CIOs say they’re handpicking their successors and training them using mentoring and management programs. A recent survey of 1,400 CIOs by staffing firm Robert Half Technology revealed that half are doing it and 43% of them have mentoring programs in place to achieve that goal.

A federal appeals court Monday ruled that IBM did not discriminate against its employees on the basis of age, overturning an earlier verdict in that case. "All terms of IBM’s plan are age-neutral. Every covered employee receives the same 5 percent pay credit and the same interest credit per annum," said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, negating contentions by a class-action suit that IBM had favored younger employees over older when it switched pension plans in 1999.

Nearly one in 10 people believe they have fallen victim to identity fraud, according to a survey. People aged under 30 are most prone to falling victim because they are the poorest at protecting personal details, the survey suggests. Two-thirds in these groups admitted to giving a PIN or bank details to friends and family and 28% did not know a utility bill could be used in ID crime. The poll of 2,200 adults by YouGov was commissioned by energy firm Npower.

Get an introduction to plug-in development with IBM Lotus Sametime V7.5 using the Lotus Sametime Connect Software Development Kit. Learn about the new Sametime architecture based on Eclipse and IBM WebSphere Everyplace Deployment. See the sample plug-ins available with Lotus Sametime V7.5.