Oops.
Hack
Attack: Hackers Steal Over 2 Million Passwords From Facebook,
Twitter, Yahoo and Other Sites
What's in your “Hacking
Folder?”
How
Many Zero-Days Hit You Today?
… Frei pored over
reports from and about some of those private vendors — including
boutique exploit providers like Endgame
Systems, Exodus
Intelligence, Netragard,
ReVuln
and VUPEN
– and concluded that jointly these firms alone have the
capacity to sell more than 100 zero-day exploits per year.
According to Frei, if
we accept that the average zero-day exploit persists for about 312
days before it is detected (an
estimate made by researchers at Symantec
Research Labs), this means that these firms probably provide
access to at least 85 zero-day exploits on
any given day of the year.
There are probably
hundreds of simple “how to buy technology” models out there.
Using any one of them would have prevented this. Note that like all
“failing” bureaucracies, no one is responsible...
The rollout of iPads in
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is becoming a
classic case study of what not-to-do when implementing any
innovation whether it is high-tech or low-tech. I wrote
about the adoption of the innovation six months ago.
What is clear now is
that teachers and principals were excluded from the decision-making
process. The Total Cost of Operation (TCO) was a mystery to the
Board of Education who made the decision. And the initial deployment
of the devices was so botched
that the pilot project was put on hold. Phase 2 and the eventual
distribution of devices to all LAUSD students remains to be decided
once errors have been sorted out.
Making life simpler...
Google
Data Download
Google users can now
download
a copy of their Gmail and Google Calendar data. The new feature,
built into the Google Takeout service, is being rolled out “over
the next month.” Until then Google advocates can obtain an
archive file of data from a host of other Google services, including
Google+, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, and YouTube. All we need now
is for Google to sort out the YouTube
comments mess and life will be great once more.
Amusing...
Toeing
The Line: 4 Things To Keep In Mind When Web Browsing At Work
cyberslacking
(n.) The act of avoiding work and/or other responsibilities by
scouring the Internet in search of games or other non-work related
amusements. Also known as goldbricking.
Tip #1: You Have No
Privacy
Tip #2: Never Download
Anything
Tip #3: Avoid Illegal
Content
Tip #4: Use Incognito
Mode
I'm cheap and I like
lists.
Dozens
of Web Tools That Don't Require Registration
A couple of nights ago
someone on Twitter asked me for recommendations for web tools that
her middle school students could use without having to register to
use them. My first thought was to consult Nathan
Hall's long list of registration-free web tools for students.
Nathan's
list is divided into twenty-five categories.
Some of the categories of most interest to teachers are online
whiteboards, survey/ poll tools, chart/ graph tools, annotation
tools, document creation tools, and photo & drawing tools.
Applications for
Education
Using web tools that
don't require registration to use can save you and your students time
as you can jump right into an activity without having to struggle
with usernames and passwords. The downside to using
registration-free web tools is that often you don't have an option
for saving your work other than downloading it directly to your
computer or sharing it to another service like Evernote or Google
Drive which do require registration.
I have no talent in
this area, but I have a few students who do...
Advice
on Creating Infographics from the Author of Cool Infographics
Infographics are
everywhere these days. I post some on this blog from time to time.
A well-designed infographic can convey a lot of information in a
concise package. An infographic that has a poor design is just a
poster. Randy Krum is the president of Info
Newt, a firm that specializes in data
visualization and infographic design. He's also the author of the
blog Cool Infographics and a book
of the same name. Randy was kind enough to send me a copy of the
book. I devoured the book in two cross-country flights last month.
Business people are the
target audience for Cool
Infographics, but there are some take-aways
from the book that apply to anyone who is thinking about creating an
infographic. For example, Randy emphasis the need to identify the
one central story that you want to convey with your infographic
before you build the infographic. Since his book is targeted to a
business audience, I asked Randy what advice he had for teachers
interested in having students create infographics.
… Cool
Infographics contains a chapter devoted to
the concept of using infographics as resumes or biographies:
Click
here for a sample chapter of Cool
Infographics.
(Related) ...and
todays more specific advice.
Five
Good Online Tools for Creating Infographics
… In his book Randy
devotes a chapter to design tools. Many of the tools used by
professional designers cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. But
you don't have to spend anything if you want your students to
try their hands at creating a data visualization in the form of an
infographic. Here are five free tools that your students can use to
create infographics.
Dilbert explains why I
don't Facebook...
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