How strong is your password?

by mrplatts on June 10, 2011

This post is cross-posted from my personal business Pittsburgh Computing Blog. That blog is intended to communicate important technical and security issues to  a non-technical public.  I posted this here to share with my teaching colleagues.

Learn more at PittsburghComputing.com.

Probably not strong enough.

Two things are most important when choosing a password.  The length and variety of characters used in the password.  The third thing to consider is whether or not your password appears on a hacker’s dictionary list.  Password-based hacking can come in a  number of forms.  This post is to make you re-think the security of your passwords. [click to continue…]

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Doing Business With Integrity

by mrplatts on May 23, 2011

Unfortunately, part of the cost of doing business anything on the internet today is the risk of being scammed by sleazy corporations that rely trickery to lure in unsuspecting customers victims into terrible situations. It seems that the veil of anonymity and the distance that online services offer is often an excuse for sleazy business practices.

Take for instance the letter I received this afternoon from the Domain Registry of America alerting me that one of the educational sites that I maintain is due for renewal.  Two things stood out when I looked over the letter. First, the prices were way higher than what I normally pay for a domain, and I realized that I had registered this domain under a different registrar.  A quick Google search confirmed my suspicion that DROA is a scam site which would not only overcharge for the domain, but also worked by adding fees and increasing the price on unsuspecting users.  Fortunately I have a keen eye for a scam, but how many others have fallen for it?

When doing business, I couldn’t imagine using such sleazy tactics to capture new customers.  The goal of Pittsburgh Computing is to act with integrity,  protect consumers from these types of scams and to make sure that we build brand recognition through superior customer experiences and word of mouth rather than trickery.

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This post is cross-posted from my Pittsburgh Computing Blog. That blog is intended to communicate important technical and security issues to  a non-technical public.   Learn more at PittsburghComputing.com.

Oh, but they do.

Although the folks in Cupertino have long enjoyed the common myth that Apple’s operating system is somehow immune to the virus and malware-ridden woes of the PC world, there isn’t anything fundamentally programmed into OS X that makes it virus proof.  In fact, a quick Google search shows that a few times a year a big Mac-virus story floats to the technology headlines, along with the same quips about the supposed invulnerability of the Mac platform.  The Mac’s rising market share makes it a more and more enticing target for bad-guys in coming years.

Today’s news about a social engineering-based exploit reaffirms yesterday’s three simple rules for keeping yourself safe online, with one big addition: never download and install something that you didn’t specifically ask for.

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Taking a pie. . . (34 of 193)

by mrplatts on April 23, 2011

This past week I had the opportunity to take part in a great fundraiser that was organized by the aforementioned Mr. Brad Wilson to raise money for a Miracle Field in Upper St. Clair.  The event was a fundraiser basketball game featuring teachers from Boyce Middle School (Grades 5 & 6) vs. Fort Couch Middle School (Grades 7 & 8).  All in all we raised over $6,000 for Casey’s Clubhouse, a fundraising organization set up by Upper St. Clair native and former Major League first baseman Sean Casey for the cause.

In addition to the basketball game, 50-50 and signed Pirate Jersey, another draw was the opportunity to buy a raffle ticket for a chance to pie your teacher in the face! A huge seller.

Look for me at the very end of the clip!

 

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Welcome Mr. Wilson (33 of 193)

by mrplatts on March 7, 2011

I’m thrilled that one of my colleagues is so willing to share his expertise in using technology tools in the classroom with our school and beyond.  Brad Wilson’s wiki is a great resource for anyone who uses the blackboard portal with students in high school.  He always brings out the best in students and having him as part of a teaching team that promotes the appropriate and ethical use of online tools is awesome for the students of Fort Couch Middle School (and beyond)

Check out his teacher tools wiki!

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Our students and colleagues never knew us as children. What were you like at the grade you teach? What were your interests? Did you like school?

Middle school . . . well, really it was a Junior High.  What was I like when I was in 7th or 8th grade?  This is a question that we never spend enough time reflecting on.  I think that if more teachers (myself included) took time to seriously reflect on what they were like many moons ago there would be much less frustration!  Briefly put, middle school was one of the most challenging transitional times in my life.

In third grade my family made a temporary move to the USA, 23 years ago.  Today it is not so temporary, but in middle school my family was in the middle of a a huge decision, whether to return home to England where our entire family was, or to take up an offered opportunity to permanently relocate to the states.  If there is one thing that does not help a middle schooler, it is uncertainty.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of school during this time, which stemmed from everything else going on.  In English class I was reprimanded for reading ahead of the class assignments, and in others I wasn’t really all that motivated.  Frankly I think that I must have been one of those kids that plodded through each day without really taking notice of the world around me, I didn’t really become all that aware until later.

During this time I did find comfort in a group.  Back then, but not so much any more, I was a singer.  As a member of The Pittsburgh Boychoir I was part of a group with opportunities that many of my classmates never even knew about.  (I didn’t exactly announce that I was in a boychoir.) We traveled around the country, went to a summer camp with the choir and even had an opportunity to travel to Russia.  At that time, it was Russia and the former Soviet Union . . . but, my parents wouldn’t send me thousands of miles around the globe when, as my dad put it “[I] never looked out of the window when we drove across town.”  I was pretty miffed, but we did get to travel to England to visit Family (and I’m pretty sure I didn’t look out of the window there either.) Dad was right, it would have been a stamp in my passport, but little else.

So, what was it that fired me up?  What changed my mind to look at the world around me, to soak it in and make something of myself.  Partly it was just maturity, partly inspiration and some great teachers leading the way.  Today i find myself constantly pointing out the window saying to my kids, “Hey, look at that . . .”  I wonder if one day I will complain that they don’t even pay attention at home, asking “what will they get out of it?” . . . I hope not, but I suspect that this is pretty normal.

 



This post is part of the Fall Blog Challenge 2010 posed by Melanie Holtsman on her Once Upon a Teacher blog.  To Participate visit the challenge post and find the topics.

 

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I’m definitely not typical. (31 of 192)

March 4, 2011

But who is?  In an effort to spark some thought on what they view as the typical person in the world, today my 8th grade students reflected on that question before I showed them the recently released video clip from the National Geographic Series on Global Population.  I’ve found the clips produced with this series [...]

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ActiVotes a first look – (30 of 192)

January 14, 2011

Today I dedicated some time to teaching myself the ins and outs of the ActiVote handsets since we are expecting to get a fairly large number of these in the building sometime soon (At least one per four-teacher team and then some. . .) Unboxing The box I was working with today included: 32 ActiVote [...]

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December 16, 2010

I really really love and respect DonorsChoose.org — I’ve been a recipient of a very generous donation to my classroom of sound recording equipment that we have made great use of.  However,  today I got this email (subject: We’re so excited!) teling me that DonorsChoose was excited about partnering with Bing (and Oprah) . . [...]

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Videoconferencing @ USC (29 of 197)

December 1, 2010

I had a chance to sit in on a training with our Director of Technology, Ray Berrott and our High School World Language department where we piped in Jana Baxter and Kevin Conner from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3 (aiu3.net).   The session focused, correctly I think, on the places to go for making online connections [...]

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