Malware

This week I learned a lot about Malware and Malware authors. The internet is extremely dangerous with all the hackers and scammers out there. First thing learned was the phishing scams where scammers try to get you to give in your personal information, user id and password, your accounts, anything useful to them by sending you an e-mail. Usually the email is portrayed as something else like facebook or something, like a advertisement or message. Anyways, they send that to millions of users and if they catch one person who puts in their info, they'll be happy. They do this maybe every hour, so it's almost impossible to track them or not worthwhile. According to wikipedia, Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. That's the crazy thing, these things are so dangerous and lethal yet many times you don't even realize it until damage is done. As for worms, they just keep replicating and spreading taking a lot of bandwidth, creating backdoors, spreading e-mails and deleting files. Also learned about viruses which can range from very dangerous to just annoying. They usually attach themselves to an existing program trying to convey themselves as they slowly attack and take up memory/cpu. Trojan horse is kind of similar, hiding itself in a useful program in which it acts and looks useful. Spyware simply track cookies and records user behavior and one last thing I want to mention is the backdoor, -gives attacker remote control of a computer over the internet and many times you won't even know it's there. So, after learning all this, I must be more careful and safe especially when my entrepreneurial idea is still up and running with my own website. Many people will try to hack in my system and take key information and use it to their advantage. Thefore I have to protect myself with virus protection programs and stuff like that. Always remember that there are always people out there that takes advantage of the internet and their abilities to infiltrate the many users out there's, system. Just make sure you get some viruss protection, malware protection, etc.

Network

This week, I learned a lot about network/networking. I interpreted and understood terms like HTTP, TCP, IP and common protocols such as POP, IMAP, and SMTP. HTTP is hypertext transfer protocol it is the connectionless protocol, basically giving you the information and then closing the connection. TCP is transmission control protocol which guarantees delivery of your packets (full or pieces of information/data) and even if your packets get lost, TCP will re-send it for you. I'm sure everybody heard of IP before. It is the internet protocol in which it is used to define the route that your packets take over the internet. As for POP, IMAP and SMTP, they are all e-mail protocols. POP stands for post office protocol which defines the way email clients communicate (download) email from a mail server (temporary storage). IMAP is internet message access protocol which primarily does the same as POP except it maps all your e-mail and folders. Last but not least is the SMTP, simple mail transfer protocol which is for outgoing messages. So, these are all protocols and I am talking about them in this post so I can help people understand them more. Also, another one of my motives while thinking about this is to warn people about hackers that take advantage of protocols and use them in ways they are not intended to. Remember that e-mails aren't secured. So, why else would I post this? The reasons are simply to help people understand more about the network they using which helps me a lot in my project. Like I always said, my project/business relies on the web often and if I didn't understand these concepts about networking, I would be still wondering a lot about what's wrong when certain things happen. Examples I can use to explain are packets. Packets are information that is send in which it takes a certain route and within that route, it may encounter obstacles such as cities or seas. When the time it takes to receive the packets increase, it means that it is going over a huge area such as a ocean. This has helped me realize sometimes why it is so slow to get to a site or link. Now I know to correct and make my site better, conveinent, fast and popular.

Operating Systems

Source: https://ws124.juntadeandalucia.es/innovacioncienciayempresa/hogardigital07/formacion/graf/I10.jpg
This image shows four different operating systems.

Like the title states, this week we learned about Operating Sytstems (OS). Well, what is a operating system? Operating systems manage hardware and software including processor, memory allocation, and disk space. Four different types of Operating Systems include microsoft, Unix, Apple/Mac and Linux. These were founded, created or invented by people in the following order, Bill Gates, Ken Thompson & Dennis Ritchie, Steve Jobs, and Linus Torvalds. Also, the operating systems have six different types of managements including CPU management, process management, memory management, file system management, device management, and user management. Well, what I'm trying to say is that without an operating system, a computer would be basically useless and my project would not exist, well atleast not on the website. An operating is crucial for any computer because it is like the leader of a society, a family, it basically looks over and give commands to everybody. Without it, businesses would not even exist. The best features of a operating system is multi-tasking and the different kinds include single tasking which was the user intervention required to change from task to task (Dos), cooperative multi-tasking which is processes from time to time, basically giving their processing power to another application, and the last one is Pre-emptive multi-tasking which is the OS kernel guarantees each process some operating time (a.k.a time slice). Yeah, this is definitely something that I learned, the best part about operating systems is that they can multi-task and do so many things at a given time which allow users and business owners to work smooth and fast. People say the most successful project was Linux which had no rules, the sky is the limit, it is free, and popular. It gives the priority to anyone to adjust, modify, change anything because it's a open source. The bottom line is that if you don't have an operating system, you would have no business or your computer is simply, useless.

Storage/Hard Drives

This week I learned about storage and hard drives. I also found out that backing up files are extremely important. There are different websites and companies that can back up your files. Your files are the most important thing, without them, you basically lose your whole business and I definitely don't want that to happen to my business especially when my idea can help out the world in a positive manner. There is always a chance that you can lose all your information such as when the hard drive burns out which does happen or whatever else that can destroy all your files. You can have it all one minute and it's all gone in the next. Anyways, the point here is that you should back up your files from like every 2 weeks to a month or so and it could save your life! It's not even a lot of money, backing up your files in fairly inexpensive. You can either buy a external hard dive in the range of 50-200$ from fair to a good amount of storage capacity or you can decide to use cloud storage. The term cloud is pretty strait foward, like when something is out there and around, but no one can really see it but you. Basically cloud storage are online storage companies who backup your files for a very expensive amount every month (not all though). Some cloud storage services charge an additional fee per gigabyte for data transferred to and from the cloud storage service. However, some people may not trust cloud storage services with their personal/business information so their only other choice is external. The bad thing about external is same as a hard drive, it can be damaged, broken or have some issues. Therefore, cloud storage is usually a better and easier choice. A few cloud storage services include ibackup, carbonite, mozy, jungledisk (powered by Amazon S3). I would choose jungledisk - Amazon S3 to back up my files because my professor uses it and since he is a very wealthy and successful man, I trust him! I also learned about solid state storage devices (USB, flash drive, SD cards). There are no moving parts in these devices, therefore, it's a lot more convenient and not as fragile as storage devices that do have moving parts. Just one thing I wanted to share is fragmented files are bad and defragmenting your computer can make it run faster and move around to free up space. Overall, all these information can help me with my project in successfully backing up my important business/personal information as well as maintaining a fast and reliable computer to work with.

Computer Forensics

Image Source: http://monadarlingblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/identity-theft-1.jpg

This weeks lecture, I learned a lot about computer forensics and particularly, identity theft which is a severe case. While watching the clip about people who got their identity stolen, it was so sad and messed up. I also caught on to one fact that really lit my eyes up; every 15 seconds in America, someone is get robbed whether for their wallet, breaking in to houses and stealing, stealing from mail, whatever the case maybe. Another fact I learned during class was that
18-29 year olds account for almost 30% of all identity theft complaints. That's us and that's a lot. Well, this can help my project because now I am aware not to put any type of information that is not absolutely necessary up on my website or page and risk having it stolen, leading to my identity. The truth is identity theft is no joke, it's not a game. Like what one of the ladies on the clip during class said, you can spend almost your whole life working for everything and takes less than a day to screw it all up. Because my entrepreneurial business is not yet a profitable standard or making big money, it is even easier to hack/steal my data and information. Atleast people/companies with a lot of money can afford high levels of security. I'm not only responsible for providing security to myself, but other people. I mean, how about the customers, don't I need to safeguard them too? In this lesson, I really learned many things and even the little ones such as minimize what you carry in your wallet, don't show personal info on webpage, check all monthly statements to look for suspicous "mistakes," never disclose your social security number unless it is absolutely necessary, and there is many more. I also wanted to include credit reporting. Always monitor your credit because your credit is like your life. I remember my economics teacher in high school teaching me about Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian which are three different Credit Reports at AnnualCreditReports.com. It is free, however, you can only use it 3 times a year so manage when and well. I also learn to never do any type of fraud, crime or any information you don't want other people to see saved to your hard drive because I found out that 74% of the hard drives sold or given away contain data that can be easily recovered and read. 36% of those hard drives have been reformatted but still contain old data that can be recovered. These are the facts and information I picked up so I don't screw up my project.

What's In Your Computer?

It is week four and in this week's lecture, I learned about hardware and/or the components inside the motherboard (mb). These things are extremely imparitive to my project. The reason is because in order for me to have a website and all the programs I need to accomplish a successful one, first I need a computer. Therefore, learning about hardwares and all the key aspects that make a great computer is crucial to my future business. First I want to introduce the Processor, an electronic component on a computer's motherboard that interprets and carries out the basic instructions that operate the computer. The processor has 4 key parts to it, the cores, the Ghz (giga hertz), the Cache (in MB's), and the FSB (in Mhz's). Basically, the higher each of these numbers are, the better. Cores are like layers, more layers, more happy. Ghz determine how many cycles per second or you can say how many instructions per second - clock speed. The Cache has 2 levels and of course level 2 is better than level 1 (cache store information/data/memory so the rest of the computer can refer too, the more cache, the faster the computer can process). Last, but not least you have the Front Side Bus also known as the NorthBridge which is a path in which it talks to other components.
When CPU is maxed out, it is pretty much worthless, everything stops working (the cores / processors determine how much the CPU can process). PCI and PCIe ports are also important (PCI ports transfer up to 133 mb/s and PCIe ports transfer up to 500 mb/s). The more slots the better and you need these slots because it allows you to put in stuff like graphic cards, wireless cards, tv adpater cards, ethernet cards, and other expansions. RAM (Random Access Memory) is definitely a necessity when buying or building a computer. My Professor Jeff Rubin said if you have extra money, just keep doubling your RAM. Ram determines intensity of applications and the amount of applications that can be opened at a given time. It moves between applications. Hard drive determines the revolution per second and again, the more the better (SATA = 150 MB/s while SATAII = 200 MB/s). Optical drives are pretty strait foward, the more amount of space, the better it is.
Basically what I learned is about what computer/laptop to buy and what prices to buy them at. What is good and what I need to push out a successful website/project without any issues. It's rather simple for all the components, the higher the numbers, the better. However, prices vary and depends so comparing prices would be a good idea. Price is a big factor for me because every penny counts until my entrepreneurial idea website is up and running and making profit.

Operators, Bits, Values and Bytes

In this weeks' lecture, I learned about graphs, grouping data/collapsible menus, functions, conditional formatting, pivot tables, typefaces, binary, decimal and bits and bytes. All of these things may seem simple and not very useful, but the truth is, it is essential to my entrepreneurial idea/project. In order for my business and product to be successful, every little piece of the puzzle must come together as one starting from small to large, simple to harder parts. Well, the collapsible menus, the pivot tables, the conditional formatting, functions and the grouping datas. These are all part of microsoft excel which is a crucial part to making my website. Grouping data along with the collapsible menus and functions allow me to create tables and easy accessible data without confusement. Pivot tables allow me to view all that information in a matter of seconds.
Binary, decimal, bits, values and bytes. These are things that I need to know. These type of information let's me know how much storage/memory I need and how much should I use. It tells me the amount of the files and how much I am using. Basically, as long as I have a large amount of storage, there shouldn't be a problem. However, if I am putting up a huge amount of data on to my website, it may start running slower or lag. It all depends on how I am going to make this work. From kilobytes to Exabytes, all it takes is the right and necessary amount of information to accomplish what needs to be done.