Dave Murphy’s Student Resources Blog
Kojo Nnamdi, a radio host at WAMU interviewed Ryan Watkins and Michael Corry, authors of E-learning Compantion. More than three million students take online courses, annually. Watkins and Corry offer salient advice for both students and faculty who participate in a computer-mediated classroom.
Personal exposure and experience with using any technology is a definite asset; however, it is not by any means a prerequisite in the business environment. There are many technologies that we use on a daily basis without understanding how to create the technology. Good examples are our automobiles, televisions, and digital video recorders.
At the recent Chaos Communications Congress, Steven J. Murdoch, a researcher in the security group at the University of Cambridge, discussed how clock skew can be used to facilitate a digital attack against anonymity networks. Clock skew, the tendency for a computer’s clock to become less precise when heated, can reduce the efficacy of anonymizers, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Tor network.
An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the first link, for users, to the public Internet. AOL.com, PeoplePC.com, Comcast.net, Verizon.net are all examples of ISPs.
A podcast is a digital multimedia file that is distributed via the internet. Podcast listeners/viewers may download individual podcast files or subscribe to a subscription feed that automates the downloading of podcast episodes. Podcasts may be played on a personal computer; however, the inherent portability of the medium encourages use of a mobile playback device, such as a portable MP3 player.
Web sites must be hosted on a computer that is connected to the Internet. Domains, the alphanumeric names given to Web sites, must be registered and assigned to the site. Otherwise, it we be much more difficult to locate Web sites and practically impossible to address e-mail messages.
Listen to the podcast at Internet Archive.
I use Macromedia HomeSite to create new and to edit complex pages. Even though the product has a WYSIWYG option, I prefer to edit in the standard text mode, using the preview mode to check the layout of my code. I specifically encourage novice designers to refrain from using Microsoft FrontPage and other solely WYSIWYG design applications, as each of them inserts extraneous code into the page that is not in keeping with the W3 HTML standard. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3) is the standards body for Web content development.
Listen to the podcast at Internet Archive.
Sensitive digital data must be securely erased, once a computer system is marked for disposal!
I prefer to use Norton Ghost, which guarantees me the ability to reconstruct my primary partition (C: drive), in the event of a system failure or software corruption.
I am occassionally asked how to secure wireless networks and to confirm that machines are connected through the network. The two tools at our disposal are wireless encryption and the ping command. Wireless encryption comes in two versions, WEP and WPA.
Listen to the podcast at Internet Archive.
As a rule of thumb, installing and uninstalling software applications does slow down a Microsoft Windows system, because the system registry becomes more complex. However, some utility products carry a low system footprint, and I judge, offer specific value that cannot be obtained through the applications included with Microsoft Windows, thereby outweighing a minor reduction in system performance.
Listen to the podcast at Internet Archive.
Data files must be secured, especially if they were stored on a portable media device (USB thumb drive, CD, DVD) or a notebook computer. In addition to securing the data, the files must also be duplicated in a safe place.
I keep each of my systems backed up using Norton Ghost. I duplicate the Norton Ghost backup images on the server, a portable hard disk, and DVD. With Norton Ghost, I can easily restore my primary Microsoft Windows partition (C: drive), in the event of any problem. I have never had to rebuild a primary partition since I began using Norton Ghost, about 12 years ago. It has saved my hide countless times!
A combination of two simple applications keeps my Microsoft Windows XP system registry in tune.
Flash memory devices have a write-erase life cycle of between 100,000 and 1,000,000 sets. I never thought of flash memory as being limited to the number of times a section of the media could be reused; I assumed that the media would be similar to hard disks, which fail mechanically before the media loses its ability to store and retrieve data.
Computer-mediated faxing is a simple as signing up with an online faxing service, whether you need incoming or outgoing service.
The only fully-secured computer is one that is turned off. It is impossible to guarantee total security, especially once a computer is connected to a network, including the Internet. The best for which an IT manager (or an individual user) may hope is that the installed antivirus, antispam, and firewall applications are stronger than the attacks the computer receives.
Listen to the podcast at Internet Archive.
It is a simple matter to secure sensitive data using a freeware application.
A firewall, whether it is hardware or software, controls the flow of network traffic, in both directions. Unlike a hub or switch, which route traffic from one network address* to another.
There is a broad and well-developed distribution set of free software of which many applications are superior to similar commercial applications. Here are a few examples.