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Here's a sticky workplace situation that many of us will face at some point in our careers: getting passed over for a promotion. You may feel resentful or even angry. You wonder if you should approach your manager for feedback or start looking for another job. How do you deal with the rejection in a constructive way? For one thing, think before taking any action. You don't want to make an impulsive decision that could harm your career. "Being passed over for a promotion is a common experience," says Kathy Bovard, coordinator of the human resources development graduate program at McDaniel College in Westminster.

Click here: The number of companies using the Internet to recruit new employees has grown substantially over the past 18 months, says Management Recruiters International, an employee search firm. A survey of 4,300 executives found 37 percent said their firms use the Internet as a recruitment tool, compared to 26.5 percent a year and a half ago. Twenty-nine percent said their companies are posting available jobs on their Web sites.Breakfast feedback: At Cisco Systems, a big high-tech networking firm based in San Jose, Calif.

A lot of public elementary and middle school principals haven't slept well the past few nights, waiting for the release of the scores from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program testing this week.Four years ago on this page, I lauded the MSPAP as a different, improved way to test. That was after I had administered the test to a class of fifth-graders. Since then, I've moved on to a middle school, where I have given the test to eighth-graders.I still believe that it is an improvement over the standardized tests that required students to recognize, not generate an answer.

Carroll County's new $8.2 million emergency radio system got its first real test Monday during a violent dinner-time thunderstorm that knocked out electrical service for about 18,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers in Carroll County, authorities said yesterday.Lightning struck one tower supporting an antenna for the 800-megahertz radio system in the Sykesville area and struck a power line near another tower, said Howard S. "Buddy" Redman, director of the county Emergency Operations Center.

A YELLOW disk on the screen is the virtual ball. A green line serves as a virtual slingshot. But when you wrap your fingers around a new kind of joystick and pick up the "ball" with the "slingshot," this simple descendant of the game of Pong literally comes alive in your hand.As the ball drops back into the slingshot, your hand feels the ball's "mass" stretching the "rubber." Hold down a button on the joystick, and the ball sticks to the slingshot, lurching to and fro in a genuinely palpable way. Let go, and as the ball takes off, you feel the reaction.

Nothing extraordinary occurs when Scott Erickson and Mark Parent get together before a game, but it usually leads to impressive results on the mound.Erickson puts on a CD (usually the Doors) and begins stretching. Parent, his catcher, reads through the opposition's lineup card and the two discuss how they plan on handling each hitter.No big deal, except that Parent believes those few minutes are vital to the starter's success. Parent and Erickson followed their usual approach yesterday, with their usual results.

A congressman came to class at Carroll Community College yesterday, sampling opinion on the president's proposal to send U.S. troops to Bosnia.The idea is "to get feedback from people most directly affected," said Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, a 6th District Republican. "Ultimately, the mission to Bosnia cannot be a success without public support."In his audience were about 30 students, several local residents, veterans and relatives of members of the military.One student said he wondered why the United States seemed to be constantly trying to save the world.

The Baltimore County school board said last night that it may decide next week on an independent task force recommendation to establish an ombudsman position.President Alan Leberknight told teachers union officials that the ombudsman is one of three task force suggestions the board still is considering."I am hopeful that by the next school board meeting [8 p.m. Tuesday], we'll have more to say on the ombudsman," he said at a meeting with the board of directors of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County (TABCO)

"I don't know why we have so much trouble getting our managers to do performance appraisals on their people," lamented the president of a midsized company.However, when questioned, the president acknowledged that he did not do appraisals on his immediate subordinates. "Oh, I don't think they need me to do performance appraisals on them," he said, defensively. However, the subordinates responded unanimously that they wanted regular feedback on their performance.Professors Clinton Longenecker and Dennis Gioia, in a recent study published in Executive, reported that most organizations treat performance appraisals as an employee or supervisor phenomenon.

Now that high-tech weapons have helped solve a tough international problem, perhaps we can put even higher technology to work on more urgent domestic crises. The world looked on as smart bombs zapped the Iraqis, but scientific secrecy and modesty may make discretion more appropriate in some situations here at home.I have been reading about what the scientists call ''virtual reality.''Using computers, they can persuade a person's senses of sight, sound and touch that he or she is actually experiencing things that are only simulated.

COLLEGE PARK - University of Maryland junior wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, a McDonogh graduate and big-play threat for the Terps the past three seasons, announced yesterday that he plans to forgo his senior year and enter the 2009 NFL draft. Heyward-Bey, a two-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection, said he debated the pros and cons with everyone close to him before making his decision, from his mother, to coach Ralph Friedgen, to former Ravens receiver Devard Darling, a close family friend.

Talk isn't cheap on eBay. So the online auction company is tampering with tradition to rein in sellers who post negative comments about buyers. The San Jose, Calif., company recently announced that it would end its feedback structure that enables buyers and sellers to engage in mutual admiration or a flaming war of words after a transaction. Some sellers, the company has said, have gotten out of hand with retaliatory postings that are driving away customers. Some sellers believe that a mutual comment policy is the only way to level the playing field in a battle with customers bent on trashing merchants and hurting their businesses.

Here's a sticky workplace situation that many of us will face at some point in our careers: getting passed over for a promotion. You may feel resentful or even angry. You wonder if you should approach your manager for feedback or start looking for another job. How do you deal with the rejection in a constructive way? For one thing, think before taking any action. You don't want to make an impulsive decision that could harm your career. "Being passed over for a promotion is a common experience," says Kathy Bovard, coordinator of the human resources development graduate program at McDaniel College in Westminster.

The Carroll County commissioners will hold a community meeting on a second possible site for a new fire training center at 7 p.m. today at the community building on Ladiesburg Road in Union Bridge. While county staff members are continuing to test the original site on McKinstry's Mill Road, a 40-acre parcel donated by Lehigh Cement Co., resident concerns and some problems meeting sanitary sewer percolation requirements have prompted the county to search for an alternate site. County staff members will discuss the new site and hear feedback.

Drew Moszczienski has not taken a band class in several years. The high school senior can still play trombone, but he prefers writing and playing his own songs on guitar and bass. Until this year, there were few outlets at River Hill High for musicians like him. Now Drew is one of about 40 students plugging their instruments into state-of-the-art computers in River Hill's new music technology lab. Aimed at nontraditional music students, the $120,000 lab opened Oct. 1. Just over a year ago, M. Joseph Fischer, River Hill's director of bands, was looking for a way to target students like Drew.

So You Think You Can Dance wraps up this week, and I feel like I miss it already. I like that the contestants are truly talented, that the judges (mostly) give constructive feedback and that there is zero back-stabbing. Not to mention, there is just so much joy in dance that the show is automatically more good-natured than so many of the others out there. Tomorrow, the final four perform, and Thursday, we'll find out who is "America's favorite dancer."

Some midlife changes evolve gradually, others arrive as sudden epiphanies. Take BoomerWomenSpeak.com, one of the first online forums designed specifically to explore the concerns of the roughly 38 million women born from 1946 to 1964. Creator Dotsie Bregel says she conceived of the Web site when she was tackling her own midlife crisis. The Towson homemaker had just lost her mother to cancer and was also confronting the departure of her three children to college. After devoting almost 20 years to nurturing her family, she was worried about her next act. What pursuit could bring meaning to this new season of her life?

Tonight at 8 on Fox's American Idol, the remaining eight contestants are mentored by Jennifer Lopez, which strikes me as odd. Sure, she's sold millions of albums, but her strength seems to be in selling a performance, not so much on the singing. And, as judge Simon Cowell likes to remind everyone, this is, in fact, a singing competition. On the other hand, some of the competitors could probably use some feedback on charisma and working the stage (such as, dare we say it, Sanjaya Malakar)

Before the Rev. Harry Brunett opened his alternative-to-church fellowship in Columbia in 2001, he tested four prototype services in front of various groups. Don't hold services in a church, he was told, use a more neutral location. Speak from the heart, the participants said, and definitely don't cut the silent meditation part. "That's the best way we found to make sure we were touching the spiritual nerve," said Brunett, who plans to use such focus-group techniques over the coming year as he sets up a second fellowship in Baltimore.

GREYSWRITERS.COM What's the point? -- The writers behind ABC's Grey's Anatomy post here within a couple of days of each new episode's airing, sharing their feelings about the episode and other behind-the-scenes info, giving a glimpse into the making of the show. Viewers can also post feedback to each entry, telling the writers and creators exactly what they think about each episode, too. (It's not always pretty, but it can be interesting.) What to look for --Check out the links section for addresses for two fictitious blogs supposedly maintained by two of the show's characters: Joe the bartender and Debbie the nurse.