The Tech-Mom's Blog

Technology has made our lives easier, but it has also made us more vulnerable to those that want to take advantage of us. Anything users do on the internet can be tracked, and users are often unaware of how that information can be uses. Sometimes it can be used for beneficial purposes, but it can also cause great harm. Therefore, it is crucial for both individuals and organizations to protect their information. Computer systems are vulnerable to security holes because no matter how well-built the system, hackers will be able to find a flaw in security. Hackers look for vulnerabilities in operating systems, browser applications, office applications, etc. to breach the security and share the vulnerabilities via private websites visited by hackers. Computer viruses and email spam often rely on operator error, at least to some extent. That is, these attacks typically rely on fooling a human user into somehow installing malicious software. For example, a phishing email will often include ...

Computers are very important not only for personal use but also in most professional industries. The specific industry I will discuss in this post is banking. Because I am in banking myself, I see how technology is evolving the banking industry, and I am interested to see how that continues. One major shift in the last few years has been more virtual banking options. Especially with the COVID pandemic, more customers are looking to connect with a banker by phone, app, and email. In my current role, I work from home as banker and help clients virtually. I have a company-issues computer that I use to process transactions and communicate with members. We use a VPN (virtual private network) to connect to the company servers, which helps keep client information secure. In the future, I expect to see the shift towards more virtual options continue. Banks can continue to improve their virtual locations by adding more communication and collaboration options. For example, we just recently switc...

When network problems arise, it is important to know what is going wrong and how to fix it. In this post, I will explain a few commands (PING and Traceroute) that can be used to troubleshoot connection issues. PING stands for Packet Internet Groper. When you PING an IP address, you send a small packet of data to the IP and request a response. This can be a helpful way of gauging how long it takes to send and receive data to a particular IP. Longer PING times mean slower speeds, which can affect everything from web browsing to video streaming to playing online games. The Traceroute command is similar, but it maps the route the packet travels to reach its destination, including all the routers it stops at along the way. It also measures how long the packet takes to reach each router on the path. Looking at the PING and Traceroute examples I provided, it is clear that it took significantly longer to travel to Yandex.ru than the other two websites. This is likely due to the routers being a...

There are many great applications available to be able to input, modify and store data that could be accessed and used later. Each application has its primary purpose but could be utilized for additional tasks that could be accomplished in other applications more efficiently. Below is the comparison of word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database applications which were utilized in the preparation of the Documenting a Day assignment. The following Microsoft Office Applications have been used: Word – word processor, Excel – spreadsheet, PowerPoint – presentation, Access – database. The Microsoft Word is used to enter text and format its font, size, alignment, create tables, charts, import and format images, etc. The Microsoft Excel is used for making a spreadsheet. The Microsoft Excel also has the options to enter and format a text but unlike a Word document, the data is entered into cells and allows the user to perform calculations by using formulars. The Microsoft PowerPo...

The app I am reviewing is CSC Go. CSC Go is an app that some apartment complexes, like mine, use to take payments the washing and drying machines in the laundry room. CSC Go replaces card readers or coin payment systems. With CSC Go, you instead connect wirelessly to the machines in the laundry room and pay with your phone. Overall, I think CSC Go works very well and has a pleasant design, but there are things that it can do better. Functionality The purpose of CSC Go is to allow you to pay for washing and drying machines with your phone. The app does a good job of this and provides a few nice features as well. There are four tabs at the bottom of the screen: Room, Start, Wallet, Laundry, and More. Room shows what laundry room you are viewing and a quick summary of available washers and dryers. The start tab allows you to choose and pay for a machine. You have three options to do this. You can scan a QR code on the machine, enter the number listed on the machine, or hold your phone clo...

One of the things I have been learning in college is various programming languages. Recently, I had to learn how to use Scratch, a block-based programming language. Because this was my first time using Scratch, I first watched the tutorial on Scratch to learn how to use the program. I also watched some videos of what others had done, to get a better understanding of Scratch’s capabilities. Link to my project in Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/711607052 Initially, I learned how to choose a background and a character. I chose the cat character, but I used multiple costumes for the cat’s sprite to change his appearance when it is clicked on. For that, I have moved around the body parts of the image. Also, I was able to tell the program to change the background, background colors, and added a sound effect, when the cat is clicked on. I encountered some difficulties in Scratch, primarily because I had never used the program and did not know how to do certain things. For exampl...