Glamour secretary is dead… iPhone hack… Web audience metric needed

• Glamour secretary is dead
• iPhone hack
• Web audience metric needed
• Quote of the day

Glamour secretary is dead

Want to know why you are having trouble finding a personal assistant? Try offering $75,000 a year. That should get you a few bites. A new survey from recruitment firm PKL says Australian executive and personal assistants are earning salaries of more than $75,000 a year, which is more than lawyers ($73,113), accountants ($72,797), banking and financial services ($70,825) and executives at advertising agencies ($69,943).

The reason for the generous pay packet is that companies want executive and personal assistants who can carry out tasks that add value in addition to the general administration duties that have always been associated with the role.

Executives and personal assistants are now expected to have degrees or diplomas in marketing, communications and human resources. They are expected to have highly developed organisational skills, presentation skills, computing skills and to be held accountable for mistakes.

Some industries such as investment banking offer even higher incomes of around the $100,000 mark, and these roles can also attract bonuses and incentive schemes.

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iPhone hack

A young computer whiz has succeeded in unlocking the Apple iPhone for the world. George Hotz, of New Jersey, has figured out how to use the iPhone without AT&T, the carrier Apple chose in the United States.

His process, involving soldering and coding, enables anyone anywhere in the world to take an iPhone, insert their own SIM-card, and chat away. It has been posted on his blog (and checked by an AP journalist).

But good luck. If you make an error in following the instructions you could well wreck your phone. Because the process is so tricky, the new hack is unlikely to be attempted by anyone but the serious computer nerd.

Apple has said that it plans to introduce the iPhone to the Asia Pacific region in 2008, but it hasn’t set a date or identified carriers.

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Internet audience measurement – who’s watching?

Research and technology companies Hitwise, Roy Morgan Reasearch, Nielsen//NetRatings and Google have confirmed they will make submissions on the advertisers’ proposal to develop a new way to measure audience reach for the $1.4 billion online advertising industry.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau Australia, which is asking for submissions by 23 September, will review them by 19 October. It wants an industry standard to replace “unique browsers” and all the other ways publishers present their audience.

SmartCompany Quote of the Day

“More often there’s a compromise between ethics and expediency.”
Peter Singer

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