After two straight years of flat wages, tech pros finally got a bump in 2011.

How do you keep your job -- or get a better one -- in an era when hiring is in a freeze and budgets are perpetually squeezed? Follow these 12 maxims and find out.

Despite some hopeful fits and starts, the U.S. economy didn't escape the doldrums in 2011. Unemployment remained stubbornly high, the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis and budget scuffles spurred more economic uncertainty, and Europe's ongoing financial problems threatened global markets. If there's an upside, at least it's familiar territory.

Tips on implementing the latest in technology, how-tos for finding employment or contentment in a current job, analyses of "what's on the horizon" -- it's one thing to keep up with all the information out there. It's quite another to put it all into practice.

If you have tech skills and experience, odds are you're going to get a call from an IT recruiter in 2012. That's because IT departments are ramping up hiring at the same time that more IT professionals are ready to leave behind employers offering flat salaries, limited flexibility and aging technology.

Spend enough time in the tech industry, and you'll eventually find yourself in IT hell -- one not unlike the underworld described by Dante in his "Divine Comedy."

Driven to austerity in an economy that only recently appears ready to expand again, companies will likely hire slightly more data center workers this year, according to experts.

When it comes to job stability and pay, storage administrators had it made in 2009.

Demand for IT professionals has grown in the last quarter. Our guide to the jobs that are in demand, what they pay, and the skills you need to get them.

If we keep going the way we are now, this year we will outsource one in four IT jobs to India, Russia and other countries that supply low-cost labor, according to the Hackett Group, a trend that sends a message to young people contemplating technology careers: IT work is unstable. You can't count on climbing any career ladder.