Smarter Not Harder

I’m sure you’ve read a news headline or watched a report on TV, where someone’s lives where completely ruined because their information was stolen by hacker. As we continue using technology to store and share our personal data, we must be vigilant and protect our information. Having a basic knowledge of privacy and how it’s related to many different aspects of technology can help you prevent the loss or theft of your information. Understanding how to create accounts and manage your passwords properly are two great starts to managing your privacy. Let’s start at the beginning, what is Privacy? The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines Privacy as “assurance that the confidentiality of, and access to, certain information about an entity is protected” ( https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/privacy ). When thinking about computer privacy, you are really thinking about protecting your information. When creating a new online account, you can protect your data by checking t...

     As individuals continue to share their personal data and details, it’s incredibly important that precautions are taken when doing so. Sometimes, more information than necessary or appropriate is shared willingly online, and individuals with malicious intent can use that information for bad. There are many different types of network security threats to be cautious about. Still, of all of them, there are two that I feel are easily avoidable with basic knowledge and training, social engineering, and phishing.      International cyber security company Kaspersky defines social engineering as “… a manipulation technique that exploits human error to gain private information, access, or valuables” (Kaspersky. (2024)). Social engineering is easy for hackers to use when too much personal information is willingly shared online. This may seem like a no-brainer to most people, however, it can happen to the most cautious IT professional. In September of 2023, the La...

     I actually started my IT career working in the healthcare industry. My first professional job was almost 15 years ago as an Executive Assistant at a small, privately owned, mental health services office. One of the first assignments I worked on was to help enforce the company email address requirement that had just been implemented. Several of the employees were not checking their company-assigned email addresses frequently enough, and the new policy required that it be checked at a minimum once per workday. The concept of having to check email daily for some more senior employees was unfathomable; most people claimed they either never remembered their computer password, or they didn’t have time. With the right training and education, all the employees of the small company did become complaint to the new policy. Now, in 2024, I can’t imagine even going an hour without checking my work email during the workday. The only way I’m successful at my current job is if I can...

     From a technical perspective, the Internet works because packets of information travel from one device to another using the communication called Internet Protocol, or IP for short (Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019)). So, each time a user is accessing a website, a call is made from the user’s device to the website destination, and packets of information are being sent back and forth. By using computer commands, you get to see firsthand the way the information you're accessing is traveling all around the world.      I chose three website domains to search both the ping and traceroutes against to research. The first website was google.com. Google is probably one of the most popular, if not the top, websites in the world, and it is based in the United States. The ping and traceroute results I found against Google were the fastest results. This would make sense since geographically, this location is closest to me (I’m in the Sacramento, California region)...

     I think most people who are age 40 or younger grew up with computers either in their home or in the classroom. And now in 2024, young children are growing up with smart phones and tablets all around them. Familiarity with technology is becoming more and more second nature when growing up in the United States. Computer and mobile devices are allowing people stay connected and work more efficiently all around the world. Examples of applications that do that are Word, Excel and Power Point. These are programs often used daily in the office workspace or for school.      A word processor is a common computer application for creating formatted text (Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019)). I use Microsoft Word to document my work and take notes. Some of the formatting changes I made to the text are changing the color, size, or style such as bold or italics. I believe that Microsoft Word is my favorite word processor application, because it’s ease of use and com...

    Let's talk our favorite free apps! One of my all time favorites is an iOS application called    “Original Farkle”, created by Scott Slocum of Amuseware.com. The application is a game, and it’s available as a free download for iOS in the Apple App Store, and it’s suggested for users ages 4 and up. The application is a standalone download. Original Farkle provides users a simulation of a popular dice game called Farkle. The following is a review of my favorite game app, broken down into the following categories: User Interface (UI), Design, Accessibility, and Security & Updates.  User Interface (UI): When you first open the Original Farkle app, you are prompted to enter the name of your player. Then, you are immediately brought into a live game against one computer player. If the app user is familiar with the game Farkle already, then the game options should be familiar. This can be very confusing if the user has never played the game Farkle before, becau...

    Behind every great app or computer, there's a programming language. There are several different types of languages, each of them having their own unique qualities. As a student, I was had the opportunity to use a free software called Scratch, which allows a user to create their own basic computer program for free. In this blog post I will be sharing my experiences with this free web application and some of the basics about computer languages.     There are several different types of computer programming languages that are used by computers (Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019)). Machine Language represents one of the earliest computer languages, and it runs commands written with 0s and 1s. Assembly language is human-readable. Writing commands in the native human tongue, the information is then converted using an assembler, which is passed into machine language to the computer. Lastly, there is a type of programming language called high-level language. High-level l...