Among the people who can still manage to benefit during the downturn in the technology sector these days are the security experts, system programmers and Pepsi Co.

During the tech boom information technology (IT) workers were in high demand and their salaries rose accordingly. The latest survey by Gartner Group's People3 subsidiary shows that last year's skyrocketing salaries have eased off as economic reality settles in and layoffs in the sector abound.

Still IT workers are not doing too badly, and in some sections of the job market, such as system programming, they still are in high demand. The median base salary for the IT jobs surveyed was $62,100 at 31 March 2001, an increase of 1.8 percent over last year. Median total cash compensation was $64,200.

The rate of increase is significantly lower than gains in the US national consumer price index, which rose at a 3.7 percent annualised rate during the past quarter. However the People3 study indicates that the IT worker can still be picky when deciding on a job.

The average tenure for an IT professional is less than three years, and more than half of IT professionals leave their employers within that time, the study found. IT employees ranked three factors - the use of new technologies, offering learning and training initiatives, and providing a challenging technical environment - higher than competitive, market-based salaries as effective means to get them to stay in their positions.

''While turnover in IT organisations is generally lower across the board, the workload of the IT function is expected to increase 50 percent by 2005," People3's press release stated.

"It is absolutely essential for IT and human resource leaders to have the right programmes and policies in place to attract and retain IT staff during the next few critical years."

The study found that of the 104 types of IT jobs analysed, the position that takes the longest average time to fill is network architect (4.2 months), with database administrator coming in second (3.7 months).

Those working within the system programming sector had the largest average base salary increase (7.1 percent) and total cash compensation increase (8.1 percent) over the year over last year), and median total cash compensation was $64,200.

While Gartner has not published details about those working directly in the network security sector, you can bet that with the spate of viruses around business has been good.

I can see them swishing back their Code Red soda in celebration.

Code Red is the cherry-flavoured version of Mountain Dew, released in May by parent company Pepsi Co. and apparently is the favoured caffeine drink of the moment for computer programmers.

The current computer worm and its variant Code Red II, are bedevilling the Internet. The staff of eEye Digital Security named the original worm after their favourite drink when they first discovered it. According to Pepsi it's a coincidence that the company is holding a ''Crack the Code'' contest to promote the drink on the Mountain Dew Internet site (www.mountaindew.com)

Ha! The company has been unable to say whether sales of the drink have taken off since the worm hit the Internet, according to various media reports.

CodeRed.v3 was discovered on August 4, 2001. It has been called a variant of the original CodeRed worm because it uses the same ''buffer overflow'' exploit to propagate to other Microsoft's IIS web servers. The Symantec security site says the variant worm has infected more than 1000 servers since it appeared.

A worm is a program that makes copies of itself, for example from one disk drive to another, or by copying itself using email or some other transport mechanism.

A new type of low-power battery that is thin enough to be printed on paper will soon be appearing for sale in shops, according to New Scientist magazine.

The power source relies on a secret mixture of chemicals to produce 20 milliamp-hours at a terminal voltage of 1.5 volts for every square centimetre that is printed. The battery is roughly 0.5 millimetres thick and would, if mass-produced, cost just a few cents per square inch, according to Israeli-based company Power Paper.

The battery will first be used to power flashing lights and jingles on novelty cards and other promotional products. Power Paper suggests that the battery could also be used within health care to power tiny medical diagnostic equipment and drug delivery patches.

German healthcare company KSW Microtech already uses the battery to power monitoring of the temperature of blood supplies. The company uses a small chip with a thermometer to the side of each blood bag that wirelessly transmits records of the bag's temperature history to a computer.

The new battery has conventional zinc manganese-dioxide components as anode and cathode. The cell's chemical power source, which is sandwiched between the other chemicals remains a secret. Paper Power claims the material is non-toxic and non-corrosive, making the battery safe to use without casing.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. You can contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com or (33) 467901474.