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Think Security for the New Year!

Happy New Year!  I wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.  But in order for that to happen everyone must remain aware and vigilante of their own security.  So this year I plan to post more security relevant information as well as tidbits that will help all my visitors recognize when things are just not quite right.  To start I urge you to remain aware of the security used when going to some of your favorite and trusted websites.  When using banking websites or websites that ask for your personal information you should always use https, which is used to make a secure connection between your browser and where you’re visiting.  Below are some examples of how different browsers show you’re connected securely:You should be aware of this especially when connecting wirelessly because wireless connections can be hijacked to obtain your personal information. Krackattacks.com has released a video showing how a man-in-the-middle attack can be done to you even when using WPA2, one of the most secure Wireless protocols (See Below).

So while browsing this year train yourself to be aware of whether a secure connection is being made and if not don’t enter any personal information because it may not be secure.

 

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Resources to get kids into computers

If you’re trying to get your kids into computers and programming here are a few resource that may be useful.

Alice (http://www.alice.org) – Alice is a 3D programming environment desgined to teach childrean object-oriented and event-driven programming.  
Arduino (http://www.arduino.cc) – Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform with both hardware and software components. Arduino’s hardware is programmed with a language similar to C++.
Blockly (https://developers.google.com/blockly/) – Blockly is Google’s refinement of Scratch using the same interlocking building blocks metaphor, but it can output code in several different programming languages. 
Hackety Hack (http://hackety-hack.com) – Hackety Hack is an open source application that teaches the basics of programming in the popular Ruby language.
Kodu (https://www.kodugamelab.com/about) – Kodu is a game programming app from Microsoft designed for the Xbox 360.  Although this has been abondoned it could be useful since it works on Windows 7 and XBOX 360.
Lego MindStorm (http://mindstorms.lego.com) – Lego mixes robotics and programming with its MindStorm kits.  FIRST even holds yearly competitions which will allow your child to adventure to a whole other level in teamwork.
Lightbot (lightbot.com) – Lightbot is a programming puzzle game from Danny Yaroslavski, a Canadian university student.
Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu) – Scratch is the MIT Media Lab visual programming language for children age 6 and up.  My kids like this program when introduced to it because they could see the results of their coding and making animatiosn was fun.
Swift Playgrounds (https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/) – Swift Playgrounds is an iPad game designed to teach kids how to program in Swift, One of Apples App programming language.
Tynker (https://www.tynker.com/) – Kids learn fundamental programming concepts with a Lego-like visual language, then progress to JavaScript and Python as they develop skills and gain confidence in their new abilities.
Twine (https://twinery.org/) – Twine is a storytelling app that can be used to teach structure and non-linear games and stories.

Other useful resources for learning coding concepts and programming:

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Save and extend battery life by closing apps on iPhone

I would do a video for this but they’re already several out there so I’m going to link to a few below. This gist of this post is to make you aware of one of the reasons your iPhone battery dies so quickly. iPhone Battery life is determined by the amount of charge available along with the amount of processing(work) your iPhone is doing. Every time you open an App your iPhone loads that app into memory. You processing will spike while it loads the App and then level off and drop down while the App is idle. Most people press the home button and begin using other Apps which effectively throws the App into the background. Throwing the App into background doesn’t mean its closed so that App remains in memory. Although its not actively processing the CPU is still active because it has to maintain the state of that App while processing currently running Apps. Over time if you don’t close Apps they build up in the background increasing the amount of memory used and eventually start slowing down your iPhone as it tries to maintain the state of all your Apps. Keeping Apps in the background saves you time in loading and takes less processing power if you plan to go back to them but if not you’re wasting memory and increasing your battery usage maintaining an App that you’re not using actively. To help you save your battery life and speed up you iPhone, below I’ve shared 2 videos on how to close Apps on iPhone 7 as well as a video on how to remove your Apps from memory if you have lots of Apps running in the background. You should also note when you read or go through instructions and it says to close the App this would be how you would accomplish that task.