Keeping Your Personal Information Safe

                                                 DID YOU KNOW???
Did you know that, according to the Bureau of Justice 2014 statistics, 17.6 million U.S. residents were the victim of at least one incident of identity theft?!? How does that even happen? 
Here's How:

According to an article written by Mike Freeman for the San Diego Union-Tribune, Microsoft reported that a whopping estimate of  25% of personal computers are operated without form of updated virus protection on them. According to the article, these machines are about 6 times more likely to be infected with malware, which could be used by hackers to commit identity theft.
It may seem like common sense but, by looking at some of the stats that are available online, people just aren't doing some of the common sense things to protect their systems that house all of their important stuff like tax information, banking information (credit card and account numbers and passwords), and other sensitive data.

So...What are some of those common sense ways that someone can protect their computer?

1) Antivirus Software

If it is true that almost a quarter of all computers in use over the Internet are not protected by some form of antivirus software, it would stand to reason that by purchasing said software, it would go a long way in the protection of user’s personal and sensitive information. Antivirus software suites such as McAfee, Kaspersky, Norton, and Symantec are designed to scan through a user’s files and directories in search of malware. Once detected, the software is designed to remove the bad code. Sometimes the software will alert the user and ask for permission while other times once the scan is started, anything found is removed. 

2) Firewalls

Firewalls are another form of software protection that are designed to protect a computer system or network by screening and blocking hackers with their malicious software from getting unauthorized entry in while allowing for the user to be able to exchange information with sites that do not pose a threat. There are two types of firewalls protection, hardware and software. Hardware Firewalls are the routers used in most small office and home network systems. If a user has more than one computer or device such as a tablet or smartphone that they use in their home they should ensure that they have a router set up to protect each of the computers and devices from potentially damaging incoming network traffic since the router wouldn’t know which device on the network to send the traffic to. The router blocks the traffic ensuing that each of the computers and devices stays safe. Without the router, all of the computers on the network would be vulnerable to Trojan horses and other malware that have come in and are now located on the network.
Software firewalls, like antivirus software, are directly installed on the user’s computer. These firewalls can be set up and customized to allow the user to control the level of protection that the software will provide. Like the routers, software firewalls protect the user’s computer and devices from outside attempts to gain access or control of the system by blocking it from entering into the system or it can also block malicious code from trying to send data outside of the system as well as would be the case with malware.

3) Encryption

Encryption is one option for keeping information safe. Encryption uses computer algorithms to jumble up messages into something unable to be understood and only decrypted or deciphered for the intended reader. 

There are two types of encryption: Public key (asymmetric) encryption and Private key (symmetric) encryption

In public key encryption, a user could encrypt a message document and send it off to another user using his public key. Once the message got to the intended user, they could open and decipher it using a matching private key. However, if the user only has a public key he could not decrypt a return message using that key, he would need a private key.

Meanwhile, in private key (symmetrical) encryption, both the user and the recipient of his message could encrypt and send messages as well as receive and encrypt messages using the keys that they have, public and private respectively.

4) Biometrics

Another measure that users can take to ensure the safety of their data is biometric security. Once thought of as futuristic, biometric authentication uses measurements of a user’s body parts such as the iris of his eye, facial recognition, or fingerprints to allow access to sensitive or secret information or areas.  Today, many commercially available devices use biometrics to protect the information stored on it. Apple started using biometrics back in 2013 with a fingerprint sensor located on their home button. Since that time, many other products have come out using that same technology as a form of protection

5) Passwords

For something that should be so easy, passwords are the thing that most of us get wrong. Some general rules of thumb for passwords are that they should never be so simple that a stranger could guess but should be something that the user will be able to remember. Information such as the users birthday or variations of their name should never be used to create a password. 

Although it seems like once you create a good strong password you want to use it for every site you visit, that would also be a (VERY) bad idea. You should ensure that you make different passwords for the site you visit, keep them private and protected, and change them often.

Although it seems like a lot of work for users to keep their systems protected, it is a lot less work than it would be to try to recover your finances and sense of security if someone where to compromise your identity.

I'm Shereeta Maxey Young, a retired Army veteran who is now a retail data collector and college student at American Military University. I am currently working towards my BS in IT Management and is only a few short semesters away from completion!

Lost Treasures: Skype and Instant Messages

Remember when instant messaging on Yahoo or AOL was cool? I hate to say it but I think that those days have long passed us by...judging by the look my teenaged daughters are giving me, they're long gone. 

But, back in the old days before KIK, and things "going down in the DM" (direct message for us old folks), instant messaging was the fastest way to get a message to somebody without picking up the phone. Yep, it was not done on the phone, it was done on the computer. Now that everyone has text messaging and all kinds of other ways to communicate quick fast and in a hurry, Instant messages has fallen away with the likes of the Zune music player (my girls still laugh when I talk about how cool THOSE were). 

There are still some places where instant messaging plays a nice role such as Microsoft Project which has instant messaging capabilities so that people that are working on virtual project teams can communicate in real time about their work. KIK is also a nice little instant messaging program that a lot of people use. It allows for people to message each other without having to give your phone number to do it....when I was dating, KIK was a really great tool to protect me from giving my number out to people who I may be interested in but time would later prove that they weren't for me. I could just delete and block them from my KIK...no muss no fuss.  For much else, I don't see the widespread use anymore as most people have moved on to text messaging and direct messaging in sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

Skype is another site that I used to live by, especially during my deployments. I used it to communicate with my kids while I was gone and it was a big help in keeping us close. Being able to not only speak to but also see the person was such a great tool in keeping the moral high. I haven't used it much since I've returned home except for a long distance job interview when my family moved from Georgia to Kansas a few months ago. I think I was more nervous on the camera than I would have been in person but I appreciate that these types of technologies are being more widely used in those kinds of situations. I think that the use of Skype has started to fall away with he emergence of FaceTime and other like options for the Android...again, I think that it falls into whether or not someone can use their phone or tablet versus sitting down at their computers.

The Wonderful World Of LinkedIn

When most people think of social media or social networking, I don't think that LinkedIn is one of those sites that immediately comes to mind although, for those of us that may be out here trying to find our next professional opportunity or have something to offer our peers in a particular industry LinkedIn is the right place to be. My experience with LinkedIn started about a year ago when I was transitioning out of the military. I decided that, now that I have some control over what career field I wanted to get in to, I was interested in project management. I had lots of experience as a project team member and manager as many of us do after we leave the military but I had no idea how to make it a civilian career...enter LinkedIn.
At the advice of everyone at the ACAP, I started a LinkedIn page and began networking with project managers to see what it was going to take to make that my new life...I met with a nice person who suggested that I look into professional certifications since I was lacking in the degree department and THAT led me to meeting the woman who would become my instructor in a PMP bootcamp which lead to the most stressful 2 months of my life applying, studying for, and passing the PMP exam.

One great thing that I am grateful for on LinkedIn is the professional groups. There is most certainly a group for just about every career field. While I was studying for my exam, I got a lot of help form others who were in the same boat in a PMP study group on LinkedIn. Not only were there lots of great questions that got asked but we also congratulated each other and supplied the group with a sort of lesson learned so that others would know what to expect. Of course, there were no questions from the actual test being put on there but the sample questions as well as being able to get clarification from people that had already taken the exam were HUGE for me.

Now, that I've got the certifications and have progressed nicely in my efforts to attain my degree, I am still networking to find my next opportunity and I always encourage others to do the same...you never know what you have to offer the people in your network!

The Top 3: Compare & Contrast Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

Ahhh...social media...my favorite time suck of all time! Before we even begin with this week's assignment I have to admit how difficult it was for me to even start it. I have accounts with all three of the social media sites that I decided to compare and contrast but to be honest, I'd never really taken the time to really investigate all of the features on any of them. I kind of just stumbled my way through each of them, collecting friends and followers, never aspiring to be "social media famo

us" or anything like that. I just wanted to be able to swap funny stories, recipes, and keep up with people that I don't have an opportunity to see as often as I'd like. With that being said, I do spend a shameful amount of time on these social media sites and, like to today, I'm not very focused on getting anything productive done.
So, without further ado lets get the comparison done so I can get back to wasting time (lol).....

There is so much more to compare than I could put in the table...or maybe it is that The comparisons and contrasts can be seen a little better outside of a simple excel table. For Instance, I think that it's interesting when you think of your Facebook "friends" versus your Instagram and Twitter "followers". Most of us on Facebook have some our distance family and friends that may have moved to a different location on our pages but on Instagram and Twitter, many times, people who are "followers" may have never even met you in person. They can just follow you unless you actually take steps to make you page more "secure". The reason I put the word secure in quotations is because I sometimes question how secure a social media page really is...I was recently hacked, someone out there made a fake Fb page using my pics trying to friends some of my people who alerted me and I was able to get it taken down pretty quickly but...it was kind of freaky that someone would take the time to actually pretend to be me...

All in all, while most of these sites have lots in common the also have some pretty marked difference...just a few are outlined in the table above. I believe your level of satisfaction and use of these social media sites all depends on what it is you want to share. If you want to share EVERYTHING Facebook may be your speed while Twitter's 140 characters may be more attractive to people who like short bursts of communication, and Instagram is somewhere in the middle with the  sharing of pictures and short messages. 

Hey let's Voki

This is my attempt to get the voki avatar into my blog as assigned...I'm not sure if this is going to turn out and I can admit that this has been probably the most frustrating part of the assignment for me. I watched the video that was linked in the classroom and thought, "This will be a piece of cake"...umm..no!
Setting up the avatar and getting her to speak was pretty simple BUT when it came time to put her into this here blog...that's when things went wonky. When I went to publish I got a screen politely informing me that I would have to come off some coinage in oder to do what I wanted. No bueno!

Her eyes go wherever I had my mouse at the time which is why she's making that crazy facial expression! haha

So, I signed up for the free two week trial thinking that it would solve the problem. I ended up having to recreate the avatar and trying the process again...only this time the darn file wouldn't save (if you listen to the audio portion of my forum post I'll describe how I was STILL waiting at that point).
What I am attempting to do now is to embed the link to my original avatar and hopefully that will work.
If any of my fellow classmates have a way for me to do this differently I am all ears my friends!

*UPDATE* My attempt failed so now I'm just gonna post the link here:
http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12756724&width=575&height=323&chsm=911051e7fe7ebd78053a71a111f92522

Someplace We Can Talk: My First Podcast

I feel like such a baby lately...I have been having a lot of "firsts" over these last few months...My latest first is this very simple podcast about well...what a podcast is and how it fits into web 2.0

Podcast Alley vs Podcats.com

Now that I have a chance to really look at both Podcast Ally and Podcasts.com I have to say that I am a total fan of both BUT Podcasts.com comes out as the winner in my opinion. I found the site to be really user-friendly and have more than enough content to satisfy any listener. The content ranged from people who obviously know what they're doing to brand new beginner newbies (such as myself) who still have a lot to learn about the "art" of podcasting. There were somethings that I did not like. I had to actually create a username and password to subscribe to a podcast when all I wanted was the link to the RSS feed...not sure that it was something that I did wrong though so.....

Other than that, again, there was a great assortment of podcasts to pick from and they even had some PM Podcasts which I can listen to to get those pesky CEUs to stay current on my PMP credential (yay!). 

All in all, I really enjoyed this week's assignment...much more than last week and I look forward to creating my own podcast!

Until next time....

Geeky Girl Gets Her Geek News

For this final installment of this week's blog posts I went back to Podcast Ally to see if I could uncover any more hidden gems or anything that interested me and I found something pretty much right away. Geek news central is hosted by Todd Cochrane the topic of the broadcasts range but mostly they're about tech gadgets and things like that. The podcast that I am currently listening to is episode 1114 titled Shame On You Apple (!). Todd Cochrane talks about how Apple iTunes is deleting music from the libraries from their users which I have personally noticed or (something I also hate) is if there is another mix sometimes Apple will replace the original sone with a mix. I have noticed it more with the lesser known artists but still.... NOTE TO SELF: Say no to Apple Music and you must back up your library...it's pretty annoying when you download a song that you liked in it's original form only to hear ever so slight difference.
All that said, this will be something that I will be listening to and learning from in the future.

Comedy on Podcast.com

So after listening to one of my favorite writers Malcolm Gladwell on Freakonomics, a podcast that I found off of Podcast Alley, I decided to venture over to Podcast.com to see what they had to offer and I was pleasantly surprised at the selection that I had to choose from. I decided that I wanted to get away from the more serious news and politics (although it was my first instinct as I LOVE new talk radio). Instead I decided to look into the realm of comedy podcasts to see if there was anything worth my subscription.
I selected the podcast It Is What It Is...It is NOT something I would typically listen to but these young college students (Nick and Matt) talk about popular culture subjects such as popular music, tech gadgets, dating....things that are affecting the young 20 somethings...
I will admit that there production quality is kind of low...you can tell that they are learning as they go...there's a bit of background noise and their voices are just...well...untrained but I could see some young people really getting into it.
Here is the url for this podcast as I couldn't figure out how to get the RSS feed to work with this particular one...I have subscribed to another one in it's place so that I could be subscribed 3 in total.
http://www.podcasts.com/it-is-what-it-is-podcast-93

Podcast Alley: Right Up My Alley with Freakanomics

 So, I have to admit that I was kind of looking forward to this assignment for a couple of reasons...I actually subscribe to a couple of podcast. None of them are very fun, I started looking into them when I was studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP) credential exam. Listening to professionals take on the standards and ins and outs helped me to understand the things that I'd read in the study guides. I'm happy to say that this assignment gave me an opportunity to get away from the more technical stuff and look for podcasts that genuinely interests me...enter Freakonomics.
I chose to visit Podcast Alley first to search for a podcast that wouldn't put me to sleep and I came upon the Freakonomics podcast. Whats' so great about it? Well, they recently did an interview with one of my favorite writers, Malcolm Gladwell! It was a bonus broadcast from May 1st....making today my lucky day!
Their typical broadcast topic is about, as the name suggests, economics but it isn't some guy boringly drowning on and on. The Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's,  broadcasts are fairly short ranging from about 30 to 45 minutes on a pretty good range of topics which means that you can listen while on a run or doing chores as I am listening to the Malcolm Gladwell interview while I write this...
For people that are interested in a range of topics in the area of economics Freakonomics may be just the ticket!

Shift Happens Part 3: Why Not Wikis?

As I read through a lot of the discussions posted on the Shifthappens wiki site a lot of the topics brought up were teachers discussing the use of technology and web 2.0 inside of the classroom. Many of the posts were in favor of the smart use of technology in the classroom as a way to better prepare students for what is to come in relation to the future that they may face once they leave the comfy confines of the classroom. There were a couple of voices that urged for us to go back to the "good old days" and renew the concentration on the traditional subjects (those voices were very few).

This is the conversation that I chose as may final discussion summary. I liked this topic as this guy seems like a very informed teacher and he wants to gain even more knowledge by seeing what other educators and school systems are doing. How great is that!
Five teachers contributed to the conversation offering questions on how to make wikis work inter classrooms. There was one sixth grade teacher asking how to keep up with the history of the wiki to keep track of who is making changing...Again, my ignorance was showing because I didn't realize sixth graders were getting instructions on wikis(!). There was another teacher who gave advice on the  matter (check the history link...that'll tell you what changes and who made them) and he also gave the advice of giving parents the url so that we can also see what's being taught and see changes as well.
All being said, as a parent of a middle schooler and a high schooler I'm glad that there are dedicated teachers out there teaching our kids about technology present and future.

For the second part of this week's assignment I have created a wiki and you can find it at http://creatingnewcontent.wikispaces.com
give it a visit and tell me what you think of what I had to say...

Shift Happens Part 2: Wiki vs Moodle?

Can I be honest here? I've never heard of a moodle? At least not one that was actually called a moodle...I've been an online student for several years and today i learned something completely new to me. Why they would call a virtual classroom something as wonky (and decidedly NOT scholastic) as a moodle...it just sounds made up...that's just my personal observation.

Apparently, I am not the only person who has some confusion as to what the term "moodle" was all about. I like that several people answered his question again, without being disrespectful or belittling him or her. Several people answered the question, provided definitions for some of the corresponding terms such as SCORM packages, how discussion board work for both wikis and noodles, and even attached links to some of the wikis and noodles that they work with as an example.
It's kind of surprising how willing to share information people are...maybe I shouldn't be that surprised but I am. All we hear about these days is how greedy and mean people can be BUT being people asking honest questions and getting good answers in return makes me hopeful.

For the second part of this week's assignment I created a wiki that you can find here:
http://creatingnewcontent.wikispaces.com
Give it a visit and tell me what you think about what I had to say about wikis!

Shift happens part 1: You Can't Please Everyone

Hello all! For this week we are carrying on with the web 2.0 theme that has been the focus of the class and with that we have moved into the world of wikis. I have kind of a strange relationship with wikis as I have used them many times to settle arguments  ahem, debates with my husband quite a few times. They can be a great source of information however for my academic studies the use of wikis is often frowned upon. I get it, because the information can be edited by anyone that can leave the information vulnerable to tampering and therefore may not be the MOST reliable resource out there. 

With all that being said, after I watched the (kind of outdated) shift happens 2.0 video I went directly to the shifthappens wiki and tried to join as directed in the classroom. I joined the wikispaces website fairly easily but when I went to join the shifthappens wiki I received an email from Dr Scott Mcleod and Karl Fisch who informed me that the site was only for archives...I'll have to think of a work around for that...

Moving on, I still had quite a bit of work to do to get this week's homework done so I moved on to reading some of the conversations posted on the site. One of the first ones that caught my attention was one titled Profoundly Upset By This Video 

I have to admit that a part of me kind of shared his sentiment. As I watched the video I wondered where they got the stats from since there were no sources cited and I wasn't the only one as someone actually made a similar comment on a post.  Later, another individual came along and posted a link to the sources n a separate discussion. As far as this conversation, I appreciate that although this person posted a negative discussion the people that replied were respectful in their disagreement with him. One person commented that although he didn't believe it was propaganda he could see how someone may have taken it that way. Another commenter posted that even though she "loved" the video she also welcomed hearing both sides of the argument. She went on to say that if he felt that wikis weren't the answer, what did he suggest in their place.

Too many times nowadays, when people disagree with each other on social media the conversation often breaks down and turns into personal attacks. I really appreciate that everyone in this discussion treated each other with respect.

For the second part of this week's assignment I created a quick little wiki that can be found here:

http://creatingnewcontent.wikispaces.com

give it a visit and tell me what you think!

Del.ici.ous

This just in....Del.ici.ous is actually up and working! Just in time for me to post a quick review of the site, Del.ici.ous another bookmarking site much like the site Diigolet that I reviewed earlier this week.
It works much in the same was as Diigolet allowing users to bookmark and tag their favorite websites along with the ability to see what others (friends or whatnot) bookmark with similar tags.
Again, I didn't see the value in it at first but as I have become more aquatinted with the site, The more I really like it. I especially like that no matter what device I use, I have access to my bookmarks. The site was super easy to navigate and very visually appealing. It will definitely be one that is now on my my daily visit list!

It Could Be Sweet: Del.ici.ous

The above image is what I have been met with all week as I tried to use the social bookmarking site Del.ici.ous...
I will admit that I totally don't see the value in this tool at all. Everyone knows that you can simply bookmark site using your computer's web browser...it may not be a fancy or organized way to do business but it is pretty simple and doesn't require yet another username and password. The main pitfall of using your web browser to save all of your bookmarks is that you can't take it with you...meaning that if you were to use another device, you'd have to manually look for your favorite site as the bookmark is only one the one device (which kind of sucks).
In an effort to try to get something out of this I decided to sign up for Diigo which is another popular bookmarking site. It works in much of the same way that Delicious was supposed to work. Once you provide a username, email, and password (and activate your account) you can on and add the little Diigo button to your tool bar and get to work bookmarking, tagging, indexing, and sharing your favorite website. It's super simple and even I was able to get on and immediately start using the site to save my favorite recipe and couponing sites.

There's even a "Hot Bookmarks" so that everyone can see what kind of stuff everyone else is bookmarking. All in all, I think that I did learn something in giving this bookmarking a try. I see me using this a lot in the future :) 

Pose For The Camera: Flickr Flickr Flickr

Welcome to another week of my rambling on about my awesome web 2.0 experiences! This week I tried something fairly new by going on the photo sharing site Flickr...it wasn't my first time on the site... sort of...
As the story goes, a month or so ago when I wanted to try and raise the number of people who read my piddly little blog, I decided to go on a "major" social media attack and join every relevant site and post content there. I'd vaguely heard of a site called Flickr and figured that if it were anything like Instagram then I should probably join. As I was entering in my old Yahoo id (that I had to reset because, well...who still uses Yahoo?) my two in-house social media experts (my teenaged daughters) came downstairs to see what the hold up for dinner was and asked what I was doing. When I told them, they immediately laughed and informed me that "nobody" used Flickr.
Of course we all know that isn't true but their looks of disapproval were enough to convince me to abandon the site and start on dinner...soon Flickr was forgotten...until this week.
When I saw the assignment I immediately went to the site and noticed that it was visually beautiful! The images on the homepage were all professional looking and just...gorgeous. I felt a little out of place on the site since I'm not a professional photographer and wouldn't know good lighting if it smacked me in the face. All of that being said, I had an assignment to do so I was gonna do it, even if my content isn't as visually stunning as everyone else.
The negotiation of the site was a little confusing and I actually referred back to the embedded video in the classroom a time or two to kind of get the hang of where to click to start uploading content to post. I uploaded 5 pictures (I'm an overachiever...lol)
but had to go back because I messed up and only one of the images ended up in the album(?)...not really sure how I did that but...I fixed it.

Tagging the images was pretty easy and I was actually surprised at the number of images tagged with some of the result of checking how many images were tagged in the same ways as I chose...

There are 6,886 Images with the tag "Will Ferrell

Believe it or not: There are 394,143 images tagged "Donuts"!

Not surprising there are 1,118,133 images tagged "Social Media"

There are 50,807 images tagged "Pros & Cons"

"Tumblr" is the big winner with 3,732,188 tags! 

All in all, I'd say I had a pretty positive experience with Flickr however I really don't see it as a site that I'll visit all that often. I guess I just like my social media a little more "social" and since most of my friends and family are using Instagram and Snapchat (I'm still trying to figure it out) that's what I'd be more likely to use (once I get it figured out)...

Take care all!

Opens Source Review Part 3: Gimp

So unfortunately my streak of cleverly named blog posts have come to an end with my choosing of the GIMP image editing software. It is a Photoshop alternative and who doesn't need a little Photoshop in their lives without having to spend Photoshop money? I certainly can see the value in using it as I do a lot of DIY and crafting projects and I like being able to manipulate an image to get it to be exactly what I need for a project.
Before I started using it, I did watch a tutorial on YouTube first just so that I wouldn't be wasting time trying to figure out what all the buttons do (which is what turned me off from Photoshop to begin with).
The tutorials didn't really give me all that I needed in terms of assistance in using the program...I really had to do a lot of playing around with it which for me is kind of frustrating but...it's free so I guess I won't complaint too loudly about it.

So I went to work with it, selecting an image that I wanted to edit...and I'm absolutely too frustrated with it to actually accomplish what I set out to do...pretty much the exact same way I felt about Photoshop. It had a lot of the same types of tools and was just as confusing...even with the tutorials playing in the background...with all that said, I wanted to have a screen shot of my little text run with Gimp but I was the intellectual gimp because I couldn't do what I wanted to do...I'm going to relax my mind and maybe I'll come back to it later this week because although I didn't really get the hang of it on the first try, I can see the value in having an image editing program that you didn't have to spend an arm and a leg for.
If you are a Gimp wiz or know something I don't, I totally welcome all comments below! :)

Open Source Software Review Part 2: Lovin is What I Got- Sublime (Text 2)

I don't know the age demographic to anyone who may be reading this but I can only hope that you're getting the joke of my title for this week's blog posts. It has been a pure (but happy) coincidence that the two forms of open source software that I have chosen to review both have some popular culture reference attached to them. In my last review of Mozilla's Firefox browsers as I was downloading it I could hear Katy Perry singing Firework in my head. In this review of Sublime Text 2 I could hear Santaria from the band Sublime from the mid-90's...My kids would totally be making fun of me right now by the way....
Back to business...I was kind of stumped as to what open source software I should download after my adventure with Firefox. I didn't want to take the easy way out and just find an open office or something like that...not that there's anything wring with doing that but I actually want to do myu own comparison and there is already so much written about that particular product so I had to go to the drawing board. I did a little research on CNet.com and of course I just Googled open source software.

I didn't need a text editor...I had just downloaded a new one (named simply TextEditor 1.2 ) for the web development class that I am currently taking since the one that came with my mac book is so old that I was having trouble getting it to work properly. I liked the new one, it does what it's supposed to do...nothing more and nothing less but I figured I'd at least try another one... Enter Sublime Text 2. I am very happy with this software. Once I got it all downloaded, I immediately opened it up and started entering in some code that I had been piddling around with over the weekend to get my practice on.

The Sublime Text 2 (ST2) is the black screen in this screen shot and you can tell a marked improvement in being able to see what it is you're doing on that screen versus TextEditor 1.2. I mean, in all honesty they are both simple text editors but the ST2 is a little more user friendly in that the way the bright colors clue you in to errors in your syntax a little better in my opinion and I also appreciate that it's intuitive in that when you start typing in commonly used syntax it takes a click of the tab key to finish it off and when you open a bracket it closes it so for us beginners THAT shouldn't be an issue anymore. Bottom line for me is that I like the colors...it's pretty and it makes me want to use it...simple as that.
I'd mentioned in my last post that in the past I had some definite aversion to open source. I guess I thought that it was cheap, and the quickest way to get malware placed on your computer or that hackers could come in and steal your identity by using it. Of course one should practice caution when downloading stuff from the Internet but I am big enough to admit when I've I'm wrong about something or that I've learned something and I have picked up on something pretty good with this piece of open source software gold.
So, that's the second of my three reviews. If  I missed something or there's a point you'd like to add please leave me a coment!

My Open Source Tale Part 1: Baby You're a Firefox

My adventure this week beings not with the current class or assignment that I am working on but actually with another class that I am taking this term. I am currently taking 4 classes this semester and one of them happens to be a web development class which is kind of fun but is also a bit of a buttkicker...
Anyway,  in my attempt to complete an assignment and not completely bomb the class I'd downloaded Google Chrome as an alternate browser to use in addition to trusted and true Safari. The reason I even did that to begin with was because I had written this "spectacular" code but it would not render when I tried to view it in Safari. In my flawed thinking I figured that it MUST be a problem with Safari...yeah, no...it was my faulty syntax. Anyway, if two is good, three must be better so for this class I am reviewing my experience with Mozilla Firefox, which I have downloaded as well.
First, I didn't know that Firefox was even considered "open source".  In the past when I think of open source it had a kind of negative connotation to it. As if because the software is "free" it must be cheap or bad and we all know that this line of thinking is false.
After getting the software downloaded and ready to go , it pretty much functions as any other browser would. I clicked on it and it was a bit slow to start but it took me to the homepage where I was given instructions on how I could make that my homepage, get a new email account, and basic web
browsing instructions....there was nothing there that really knocked my socks off or would make me abandon my Chrome or Safari... I guess I'm just a creature of habit. 
I did find it a little strange that the folks at Firefox use Yahoo as it's search engine...I didn't think people actually still did that....not trying to act like a search engine snob but...I'm a slave for the Google machine I suppose as it is no longer a name but a verb in the English language...but what do I know...I should probably Google that.
So, that's the first of three open source software reviews. Thanks for reading and if you can offer me a little knowledge on the subject or if there's something I failed to see let me know in the comments.
P.S here is the beginnings of a test webpage I developed rendering in Firefox:  

 

Rev2: The 2nd Summary

I'm back at it again with the second part of my homework assignment, summarizing another blog that I have picked from the list of the Top 10 Web 2.0 blogs to follow. For this second installation I picked REV2 which was described as covering everyday topics from web 2.0. I'd never heard of this site before so I was pretty interested in the authors, Sid Yadav and his team of bloggers, take on a variety of topics.

Upon clicking on the link you're taken to a nice clean site that isn't as busy as other sites such as Mashable. Again, there are the usual navigation buttons at the top of the page. These buttons take you to posts whose topics range from news on social media and tech companies as well as tech trends and product reviews. I have, personally, never had the desire to read tech reviews but since I was here I decided to give it a honest try. I have to say that the content on this site, while considerably less than on Mashable, was very engaging and interesting. I read a quick article on the fast tracking success of the live streaming app Periscope, again, very engaging and well...short.
The social media sharing buttons are not quite as prominent on the page as they are on other sites. The buttons are located at the bottom of the page and you can share the individual posts and of course the site recommends more articles based off of the ones that you click to read.  I suppose if there was a negative to this site it would be that the content posted is rather dated. The post at the very top of the homepage is 8 months old where other sites are updated very frequently. I'm not sure if this blog has been abandon or if there has been some change to the site and maybe because I am not a frequent visitor I am unaware.

So there was my quick summary of the blog site REV2.  If you have any questions about the live streaming app Periscope I mentioned earlier (another addition to the Web 2.0 universe) heres a quick video explaining how it works here: