Workshops, and the role of computer training

I just finished a series of workshops with the group I work with at Montclair (PRISM) in conjunction with PCCC. It was very interesting to be working on a joint effort with these groups. I have been working for the PRISM project (and it's previous incarnation, CETERMS) since the summer after my sophomore year. They are a grant funded project that provides teachers with training in the math/science areas. It is actually the place I got my start teaching. Someone was scheduled to do a technology workshop and called out sick. I had been assisting the workshop coordinator, so I knew the workshop, and I gave the workshop that day. I've been doing technology training for them ever since. I've done Internet concepts (and for 1999, that was pretty forward thinking!), PowerPoint, data analysis with Excel...and a few more workshops. I also used to do their Web site (coding the Web pages by hand, instead of with a tool like Dreamweaver). Who knew I would turn out to be good at teaching and would turn it in to my career? I certainly did not, and I don't think the woman who runs the program foresaw this either.

Anyway, this summer presented a very interesting challenge. The theme that was chosen for PCCC and PRISM to work together was Forensic Science. I didn't really see any way I fit in to this, but eventually as I worked to liaise between the two groups, I noticed they had fingerprinting database software. Basically, it would be able to look up people's fingerprints and match them to a local criminal database that you create. It's not FBI, but it's good enough for training and small police forces. When I suggested including that, I was told that they did not have anyone qualified to teach it, and that people were waiting to go to training for the software.

The beauty of studying computers is that once you have a feel for computer interfaces, new technologies are easier to learn. I sat down in front of this program (by a company named Sirchie called ComparaPrint- though oddly enough, I can't find it on their Web site so I can link) and picked it up very quickly, and I have never seen a program quite like this one. I managed to learn how to use the software very quickly because I understand the concepts of databases. This software is basically a big database package, and since I understand databases, all the natural operations (adding a record, performing a query, generating a report) came pretty naturally. Likewise, back in my undergraduate days, I remember teaching myself a programming language called Perl by doing what we called "hacking around". I just sat down, played with the language, and learned the key things in one night. That was easy for me since I learned programming concepts at Montclair (as opposed to receiving training in a specific programming language). Montclair did an excellent job of using the programming language as a vehicle to teach programming concepts.

In most college programs, there is a mix of theoretical concepts and facts, and the general feeling I get is that if you teach students how to learn about their field, it will treat them well going forward. It reminds me of the old saying "give a man a fish, and you will satisfy his hunger...but teach a man to fish, they will eat for a lifetime". Most careers require evolution, and computers perhaps more so, so this is why I do not think it is critical if my students remember what tab the spell check button is on. My personal opinion is that Information Technology should not be a degree where you simply learn where to click around, but a career where you learn how to learn new technologies. This is why, even though I teach software in my application software training classes, I do tend to ask some short answer questions about how the tool can be used.

I had a lot of fun, and I do not think that many people (some of whom may be reading this now, since I did give out this blog address) realized exactly how short of a time I was using that tool.

How Old Spice just changed social networking

I was watching the baseball All-Star game the other night and there was an Old Spice commercial that came on. This commercial featured a good looking guy basically telling women that their man doesn't look like him, but they could smell like him. It was really over the top and goofy.


So yeah...amusing enough, I chuckled. Were this the end of it, that would have been enough, but the commercial producers arranged for their Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit sites to allow people to tweet/post questions. The actor, a former NFL hopeful named Isaiah Mustafa, then posted an incredible amount of responses...all of which were done in a towel in his bathroom as if he had just left the shower. Some of them were to famous people, and some to random people. Some of the celebrities he tweeted videos to include Demi Moore, George Stephanopoulis, Ellen Degeneres, Rose McGowan, Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Seacrest, Starbucks, and perhaps most famously, Alyssa Milano. Alyssa Milano went back and forth, with the actor posting four videos flirting with her, and even sending her flowers in real life, and prompting Alyssa Milano to post a video response in a towel of her own (view the entire set of videos here).

Apparently, he responded with over 180 videos over a few days, and had 5.9 million video views in the first day, according to this article. The amazing part is that this is getting news coverage, and celebrities are basically giving Old Spice free advertising. This is just one of the most amazing Internet buzzes I have seen. Sadly, the videos seem to be done for now according to the Twitter feed, but I wouldn't be shocked if Old Spice brought them back based on the popularity.

The question for Old Spice is always "will this improve sales" and the answer isn't clear at this point. If nothing else, they generated buzz!

The actor, based on this, was signed to a deal with NBC, who hope to capitalize on his buzz and create a sitcom.

Check out the tweeted video responses here:
http://twitter.com/oldspice

Amazon Free Shipping For College Students

Let's say you wanted to purchase one of Kevin Mitnick's books on Amazon. At the moment, "The Art of Intrusion" costs $11.53. If you were to purchase this, you would need to get to $25 worth of purchase to get free Super Saver shipping (5-9 days), or you could pay $3.99 for shipping for this item and get it in 3-5 days.

Amazon also has available a program called Amazon Prime. This will let you get free shipping on most orders, but most of the time to sign up for Amazon Prime costs money ($79 a year).

At the moment, it is free to students. Sadly, for PCCC students, it requires a .edu email address, which our College does not provide. However, for readers who are at other colleges, you may be able to take advantage of this. Amazon does reserve the right to ask you to provide "proof" that you are a college student.

www.amazon.com/student

Bill Gates joke

I was reading an article by one on my favorite writers, Joe Posnanski, about Lebron Jame and where he will end up.  As a Knicks fan, I am hoping the answer is New York, but we shall see. The article had a joke that was similar to one I had heard about Bill Gates.  It went something like this:

Bill Gates dies and meets with St. Peter in purgatory.  St. Peter says to him "Bill, you did a lot of good in this world, but you are also responsible for Windows ME and Windows Vista.  I'm going to let you decide whether you want to go to heaven or hell, we will take a tour of each."

St. Peter takes Bill on a tour of heaven, and there are angels playing harps, things like that.  Bill thinks this is nice, but is curious as to what hell looks like.  St. Peter takes Bill to hell, and the devil himself takes Bill on the tour.  There are warm, sandy beaches with beautiful women on the beaches, people drinking and playing volleyball, warm sunshine and laughter. 


The devil returned Bill to St. Peter and gave Bill the choice between heaven and hell, and Bill chose hell. 


A week later St. Peter decided to check in on Bill and see how he was doing.  When he got there Bill was chained to a wall, being burned and tortured by demons.  St. Peter asked "How's everything going?". 

Bill said "This is nothing like the hell I visited last week!  What happened to the hell I visited with the beaches and sunshine??"

"That was a demo," replied St. Peter. 

(I've also seen the ending "that was just the screen saver")

Easter Eggs

The term "Easter eggs" refers to features that are hidden inside of a software program, DVD, or other such technology.  For example, back in the original Nintendo days, there was a game called Contra.  You started with three lives, and that was a pain.  However, you could also enter a code (now known as the Konami code - after the game manufacturers) to give you thirty lives.  It's been years since I played the game, but I still remember you had to hit up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, and then Start, and you would start the game with thirty lives.  That was my first experience with Easter eggs.  Nowadays, you can find many sites that list the Easter eggs in video games.  Aside from video games, many DVDs now come with Easter eggs built in, as you can find on this site. 


There are typically Easter eggs built in to software, as well.  For example, Microsoft Excel 97 used to have a flight simulator built in to it, but Microsoft apparently removed Easter eggs in their software in 2002.  Note that sometimes people get confused as to what is a hidden feature and what is an Easter egg.

Anyway, even Google has some Easter eggs in it, and I saw an article showing some of them.

Top 15 Google Easter eggs

Joe Biden and the war on piracy

The Vice President of the United States is working with groups to fight piracy of music, movies, and software on the Internet.  According to the article linked below, he considers it theft.  A government officer issued a report that sounds like it actually included intelligent recommendations, including working with file sharing sites based out of the United States (and therefore, not subject to our laws).  For example, sharing copyrighted files here is illegal.  However, in other countries it may not be, so how can the United States prosecute people doing it elsewhere?  (Short answer: we can not as it currently stands).  However, they can collaborate with these countries (and put pressure on them too), which is apparently what this report recommends.

This is part of a more widespread intellectual property proposal that includes things like counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other such things.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20008432-261.html

Times Square Bomber and Computer Forensics

Most people think just because it is a free email address with no billing address, they are safe, but there are many ways they can be tracked.  Take for example the suspect in the Times Square bombing.  Technology helped lead to his arrest.   The car that was used was apparently purchased in cash after an ad on Craigslist. The guy was apparently somewhat clever in covering his tracks, according to reports. He switched license plates at a place where it was unlikely to be noticed (a garage - when was the last time you checked to see if your license plates are really yours anyway?).  He also attempted to remove the vehicle identification number.  Unfortunately, it is found in a number of places in most vehicles, and the suspect missed a few locations.

So, how did Craigslist play a role? The seller apparently got an email from the buyer, who paid in cash. With that email, authorities can determine what IP address that email was sent from.  With that IP address, it's an easy matter to determine who the Internet Service Provider of the sender was, and you can subpoena that ISP to get the name of the customer.

If that was a dead end, they could also trace the email address.  Let's say the guy signed up for a free Hotmail account.  He signed up from some computer somewhere, so law enforcement could subpoena Hotmail to find out what computers accessed that email account, and follow the trail as mentioned above.

Now, this guy was either sloppy or just did not think they would catch up to him quick enough for things to matter, because there were a number of ways he could have obscured his identity better.

First of all, he should have created this email address from a public computer, and only accessed it from a public computer.  Either that, or he should have "borrowed" someone's wireless Internet connection, because then the trail would lead back to them.  He could have driven around and found one easily (and this is part of the reason not setting up security on your wireless Internet can be a very bad thing).

Secondly, he should have made sure there were no cameras that could help aid in his identification, regardless of the method.  A nice, unsecured location could be helpful, and scouting is important.

Thirdly, he should have made sure to pay in cash (if this were a cybercafe), use a fake ID (in a library), or used a program to try to hide his computer's network card address (if he used someone else's Internet connection).  Each network card manufactured has a unique identifier, so if he connected to my router, I could browse my logs and find out the network card address (known as a MAC address).  Law enforcement could subpoena the manufacturer to get the name of the buyer.  If he was smart, he would have paid cash for a cheap network card (and bypassed the built-in wireless found in most laptops) and used a throwaway one.  Again, if it was purchased recently, store cameras could be used to track suspects.

Finally, he should have used some program to anonymize his Internet usage and/or mask his IP address.

I do not know the specifics of what he did or did not do right, but electronic communication is not difficult to track with a little technical knowledge and the power of a court order.

Link to Story

Out of Office Message and Privacy Risks

I remember as a child my parents used to have an answering machine.  For those of you too young to remember those, they were basically like voicemail, except they plugged in to the wall.  I remember at some point my parents changed the message from "we are not home right now" to "we can't take your call right now".  I remember the explanation was that if you said "we are not home right now", a criminal would know you weren't home, but the other message might give them pause.  My parents did not lock the doors, by the way, so I do not think an answering machine message would deter them.  I suppose I can see not wanting to say "we are out of the country from June 1 through June 10", but do you really confuse criminals by saying "we can't take your call right now"?  I guess I never felt like it would be a deterrent.

The reason this came to mind is because as I mentioned I am going to be away from PCCC next year.  I am considering what to do with my out of office message.  By putting one out there, there is a slight risk of that information being used against the College.  A smart social engineer could in theory find a way to leverage that information.  However, the alternative is to check my work email, and I am in theory not supposed to when I am on leave.

We use Microsoft Exchange.  This will allow me to put up an out of office message.  I have the choice to reply only to people in the same domain (@pccc.edu) or only to people outside our domain (everyone else), or simply everyone.  Most people would just put up an out of office message saying to contact their department chair, but the problem is that by doing so, I open up two accounts for spam.  If a spammer sends an email that gets past the email filters, they will get a reply not only showing my email is active, but also giving the spammer my department chair's email address. 

I could also make it a little more complicated, for example, say email
person at pccc dot edu
(which would of course translate to person@pccc.edu)
...but some people would get confused with this.

Making matters more complicated is that I have some business contacts that I would like to be able to contact me.  If I want them to be able to find me, I should probably provide some sort of email address for them to use to contact me.  So, the end result is going to be me setting up a new email account, to protect my home account from spam, and an added risk to both my email address and my department chair's email address.

Now, to figure out what this message should say...

Web Celebrity Hall of Fame

Wow, this is an interesting site (though possibly not safe for work).  College Humor has put together a list of what has to be about 75 sites that have gained fame throughout the years...from "Chocolate Rain"...to "Numa Numa"....to "Angry Ginger Kid" (no relation) to the "GI Joe Spoofs".  This is apparently a part of their site that has been up for years, but I hadn't seen it until today.  Definitely very cool to see many of the Internet memes put together in one place.  At one point or another, I have seen most of these things show up in my mailbox or over an instant message.

Warning: This may suck hours from your day.

http://www.collegehumor.com/web-celeb-hall-of-fame/alphabetical

Your lawmakers and technology laws

In my CIS 152 (Internet/E-Commerce Technologies) course, we discuss some of the reasons technology is ahead of the laws.  I usually then bring up a picture of Frank Lautenberg (an 86 year old Senator from Paterson) and half jokingly asking if the class thinks this guy even knows how to check his email, let alone write laws on technology.  (And yes, I am sure he has a staffer who does the work for him)

I do know there are many committees and subcommittees who specialize in certain areas, but part of the problem is the representation we have.  A government should really represent the people they represent - in demographics, education, race, occupation, etc.  However, if you look at the numbers (scroll down to "Education" or "Occupations"), you will see that over 50% of the Senate have law degrees (57/100), while only 1 of 100 has nothing beyond a high school diploma.  None have associate's degrees.  Yes, this means 99/100 Senators have at least a bachelor's degree.  Now, I understand that you do need a level of savvy to do things politically, but it is one thing to study groups you don't know, and another thing to actually be one of those people and try to be an advocate for them.

In addition, if you look under the occupations, you will see there are (as far as I can tell) no Senators and only one Representative with a degree in Computer Science (Steve Scalise from Louisiana).  Meanwhile, there are 24 members of Congress who are medical professionals.  Of course, one does not need a degree in Computer Science to understand technology, but if you are not using the technology on a daily basis as an everyday person is, you can't truly understand the challenges the way the everyday user does. 

If I needed any more proof in my mind, the article below confirmed what I thought.  In this Washington Post article, it says that a number of Congresspersons do not even know how to use an ATM, or do not use them frequently.  This is information culled from public statements, and I am sure there are many more who, if they answered honestly, would say they also do not use ATMs.  Therefore, when reform comes across the Congressional floor regarding ATM fee reform, they do not truly understand the problem (in this case, large ATM fees) as someone who pays large ATM fees does.

So, if Congresspersons do not have a deep understanding of ATMs (which I take for granted as a pretty simple technology), imagine when someone tries to explain phishing to them...or the challenges of wardriving....or why spyware should be restricted.

I am sure they have some staff members who can inform them about these things, but it is very different when a Congressperson has first hand understanding of an issue and a passion to fix it...and another thing when a staffer gives them information on a topic.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the reason why technology laws are so far behind the technology.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Facebook certainly has had its share of controversy, and another round of controversy has come up recently.

The entire Facebook site was banned in Pakistan due to a Facebook user creating a group called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day".  Images of the prophet Muhammed are considered offensive by many people of the Muslim religion, as shows like South Park have shown lately.  I think every group has the right to their own beliefs, and if they believe that an image of Muhammed are offensive, I don't think I have any right to tell them otherwise.

Facebook was blocked in the entire country of Pakistan as a result of this controversy.  The offensive page has been removed.  No one is quite sure whether Facebook removed it, or whether the creator did, or whether it was hacked and taken down.

Sites like Facebook present such interesting problems for governments.  In the United States, we enjoy a freedom of speech, but in other countries, this is not necessarily the case.  In a country where that is not the case, how does a government deal with a site that is based in the US (and therefore a site they have no jurisdiction over)?  Worse yet, how does a government deal with a site that contains offensive material posted by a user, as was the case here?  In Pakistan's case, they chose to simply shut off access to Facebook.   Fascinating.  One person posts something offensive, and it causes an entire country to block access to the entire site.  Think of all the losers here.  Advertisers could not get their message out, so they lose.  Facebook could not display the ads, so they lose revenue there.  People around the country who had nothing to do with this and no knowledge of it could not access the site. 

It makes me appreciate our freedoms just a little more when I read things like this.

Cyber Crooks and Disasters

As always, criminals are clever. 

When disasters or other newsworthy events happen, they rush to get information out there.  The goal is to get people to visit their sites, and if they can be the first results on Google after an incident, they can often infect people before Google has a chance to filter out the results.

For example, when the recent Icelandic volcano eruption happened, the scammers were smart enough to realize people were not going to search for the actual name of the volcano (Eyjafjall), because who is going to remember that spelling?  Instead, they had results up quickly for the search terms people would likely use - things like Icelandic volcano eruption.  By getting their results on to Google quickly, they had the chance to infect people's PCs.

Interestingly enough, newspapers want to be the first people to report news to gain prestige.  They are now competing with hackers.

http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/volcanos-ashes-and-malware/

Leave

I know I announced this in some of my classes, but I wanted to make a public mention of this.  I will be taking a leave of absence from PCCC next year.  Since I am tenured, this is not an end, but rather a chance for me to take some time and recharge. The College has supported me in this, so I thank them for that.

My plan is to return in the Fall 2011 semester.  I still plan on updating this blog and being around, and of course I will be at graduation this year (and next year).

10/SP Grades

I am always happy to see technology make things easier for people.

I remember when I first adjuncted a class in 2001, my students wanted to receive their grades.  They told me it took them weeks to get the information from the College.  I was happy to email the grades to them, but this being 2001, many of them did not have email (and the College didn't buy a portal until 2004 or so).

It used to be that we would have to fill out paperwork, send that paperwork to another office, and then that office would manually enter this information in to the computer.  Yes, I would take my electronic files, turn them in to paper copies, and then have someone else turn the paper copies in to electronic copies in the College's database.  Then someone would print letters, put them in envelopes, and put them in the mail, and a month later, students would get their grades.

Now, it's all electronic.  When I enter grades, the Registrar's Office just hits a button and students can access their grades.

I sent grade information in for all my classes by Wednesday of this week, so at this point, all students are able to see their Spring 2010 grades.  Two days to get grades...we have come a long way since it took a month to get them.

I think most of our professors assume you know how to get the grades (this is what a College Experience course should teach you, among other things).  If you do not, you can find the information on the College's Web site:
http://pccc.edu/prospective/registration/grades

Blogging with Word

This blog is being done entirely in Word 2007 on my home computer. I've resisted using this so far because (as I've been discussing lately), sometimes retraining is hard for someone who is experienced with a tool. I am making a concerted effort to try to really use some of the new features.

I enjoy blogging (obviously - if I've been doing it here for four years). I typically use the Web interface to blog, but there are some advantages to using a new feature in Word 2007. Word 2007 will allow you to publish directly to many blog services, including Blogger (the site I use) and WordPress. For someone like me, who is familiar with the Web interface, this is not a big deal. However, let's take the case of a company that has no technical expertise. They want to add information to their Web site, and their Web person has integrated a blog in to their Web site (such as the site FutilityInfielder.com. Jay Jaffe (who I met a number of years ago at a Pizzeria Uno in NYC) has his blog set up through WordPress. He publishes directly to WordPress, and it shows up on his Web site. Many companies want this type of ability. The only problem is that Web blog publishing can be complex for a new user. A good Web developer could set up someone up with a Word 2007 blog and avoid the hassle. If the person knows Word 2007, all they would have to do is click on the Office Button and select "New", and then select "New Blog Post". The account setup only needs to be done once, so you could very easily give a less savvy customer a five minute demonstration and get them blogging. Now this user will have all the Word tools they are used to: spell check (with their custom dictionary), formatting tools, thesaurus, symbols, tables, and all the rest. Once they type the blog, all they need to do is click "Publish". Adding pictures becomes a little more complex to set up, but can also be automated. The ability to give a customer push-button blogging that integrates in to their Web site is a great little feature.

One other issue that I see is that sometimes, people want to keep a record of their blogs. For example, there was a site named Gaia that had a blog function. A colleague of mine was blogging there for a few years, and the site shut down. In order for her to save old blogs, it became a real pain. If one were to use Word 2007 to do this, they could very easily click "Save" and keep a local copy of all blog entries as they publish them.

Here are instructions on how to set this up: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA101640211033.aspx

What's also cool is if I make changes, I can just type them in to Word and click "Publish", and it knows to "Republish" rather than create a second entry.

Still haven't figured out how to add tags, but overall a nice feature.