Top 10: Good IT salary news, career changes, and online scams

We're taking a break from (most) bad economic news this week. Oh, it's not that the week was without that sort of news, we just need a break and we figure our faithful readers do too. The only nod in that direction is toward China, where Lenovo had an executive shake up amid its falling fortunes. Keep reading, though, because a couple of new salary surveys struck encouraging notes. Rumors, scams, psychedelic drugs, and the transition to DTV -- we don't like when the government messes with our TV -- are in the mix, too.

1. Google offers tool to let you track your friends' movements and Privacy group calls Latitude a 'danger' to security: A Google location-based "feature" called Latitude has privacy-focused groups stirred up, with quick objections voiced to the search monolith making location data readily available. While it may be good for tracking where your children, or employees, are and using it requires opting in, privacy advocates raised all kinds of concerns, including the possibility that stalkers will find that Latitude is a handy tool and that hackers will have a field day with it. Google says that Latitude has sufficient safety features built in.

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2. Lenovo's Amelio resigns, Yang returns as CEO and Stung by losses, Lenovo turns focus back to China: Lenovo reported a $97 million quarterly loss and the resignation of President and CEO William Amelio, who will be replaced by company Chairman Yang Yuanqing. The executive shake up was something a surprise, but seemed to signal plans the company stated outright in a teleconference with reporters, that it will shift its focus back to China, as well as toward emerging markets. The Americas are not such a great place for doing business these days.

3. Ballmer: Enterprise XP holdouts will get hell from consumers: Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer says that if companies stick with Windows Vista or, gasp!, XP for too long after Windows 7 comes out employees who have the newer operating systems at home will wonder why their companies are not updating OSes. "If you deploy a 4- or 5-year-old operating system today, most people will ask their boss why the heck they don't have the stuff they have at home," Ballmer said. This leaves us wondering about those of us whose home computers run Linux, not to mention the Mac users out there, and what we should ask our bosses.