Careers: Advising employment hunters not to confuse the process of applying for a job with that of showing a hiring manager you are worth talking to, Nick Corcodilos explains that despite what job descriptions call for, it’s appropriate not to reveal your salary history. “Instead of filling out a data field that puts you at a disadvantage, stop, figure out who is the manager involved, and get in touch directly,” he writes in Just say no. “If you provide your salary history, you will sacrifice your ability to negotiate later.” Notes from the field: Spotting national trends before they become headlines is just one of the many, many tasks Robert X. Cringely fills his days with. This time its about cousins, or perhaps just perceived kinfolk. Bill Gates and Robert M. Gates. Jessica Simpson and Homer Simpson. You get the picture. It all began when 23andMe.com probed to determine whether investor Warren Buffett and pop star Jimmy are of distant relation. “No, thank Google,” Cringe reports. Wasting away in Googlenetics-ville. Columnist’s corner: In something of a Robert Frost meets Bugs Bunny mood, Oliver Rist reflects that he should have taken that path way back in Albuquerque that would have led to law school — so he could sue the pants off anyone violating Microsoft patents. Either that or work for the Linux Foundation’s legal team and today be prepping to countersue Team Redmond. Instead, he’s infected with “this inner need to work on projects that actually have the feeling of moving things forward,” he explains in OCS 2007 doesn’t spell doom for VoIP. Now he’s reflecting again, only this time it doesn’t go back any further than the Interop show. “Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 has telephony vendors worried. And I really don’t get why. Not because it’s from Redmond…” The news beat: Adobe injects a public beta of ColdFusion 8 with support for Microsoft .Net that, the company claims, bridges the Java and Microsoft worlds. Toshiba provides details on the AMD-based laptops that it will launch in the third quarter of this year. And a jury finds Qualcomm guilty of patent of infringement in the Broadcom case. Careers