Careers: One reader inquires about how to determine what salary to request when applying for a job and lacking a clear sense for how much the position ought to pay. “Even though you can get a sense of the potential salary range, the only way to set your own desired range is to figure out what you’re worth to this company,” writes Nick Corcodilos in this Ask the headhunter post. Part of that is figuring out how the position fits into the company’s business, contributes to profitability, how strategic the role is and what you could bring to the job to increase its value, he adds. “It’s a lot of work to prepare…And it’s going to be a lot of work to do this job if you win it. So, you might as well start now.” Opinion: Things are going rather well for Steve Jobs and Apple these days, but times weren’t always this good. Hark back 10 years, say, since today marks the 10th anniversary of Mr. Jobs at his first event as interim chief of the company. “When Macworld ’97 took place in Boston, Apple was a mess,” remembers Seth Weintraub in Apple: 10 years, big difference. Oh yes, and the company had just cut a deal with the devil: a $140 million cash infusion from Microsoft. Oh how times, and companies, change. Related: Steve Jobs shocking secret, by Robert X. Cringely. The news beat: Dell says it will sell Red Hat’s middleware stack on PowerEdge servers, thus enabling users to mix and match a Windows OS with either JBoss Enterprise Application Platform or the Red Hat Application Stack. The Linux kernel maintainer, Andrew Morton, tries to calm fears that the OS might fork, casts doubt about GPLv3, and offers a peek inside the future of Linux. And the U.S. FCC pans ‘white space’ device from Microsoft, Google, and others. Security: A look inside the real Defcon hacker conference, in which contributor Andrew Brandt examines how hackers, security professionals and government cybercrime experts from around the world “prove, once again, that none of us are as safe as we think from prying eyes.” Defcon Diary: The real story. “The conference yielded its own share of surprises this year.” Related: View the Inside Defcon 15 slideshow here. Technology Industry