A Geography game using Google Street View – Geogessr

Think you really know Geography?  Geoguessr is an online game that uses Google’s Street View.   With a small map in the corner of Google’s Street View, you pin where you think the Street View scene is.   You then submit your guess and the distance from the real location is measured.     It’s an excellent way to travel and view the world.

Give it a shot.  I just couldn’t bring myself to show one of the answers.  Visit GeoGuessr.

Hints

• License plates
• Signs?
• Traffic on Left or Right lane?
• Look at vehicles
• Flags?
• Mountain ranges?
• Trees?  Bushes
• Coastal?  Think of waterways, look at ships
• Winds? Look at the trees.
• Buildings (look at roofs)
• How are people dressed?

Highest score so far 9800 points….

Did You Know Windows 8 Has a Built-In Time Machine Backup? – MakeUseOf

This excellent post comes from MakeUseOf.

“Did You Know Windows 8 Has a Built-In Time Machine Backup?” 

“We sometimes forget with all the focus on Windows 8′s new “Modern” interface, but Windows 8 has a variety of great desktop improvements. One of them is File History, a built-in backup feature that functions similarly to Apple’s much-loved Time Machine. Enable the Windows 8 “time machine” File History, and Windows will automatically back up your files to an external or network drive.”  Read More

How to Build a Bulletproof Cloud Backup System Without Spending a Dime

“There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have lost critical data, and those who will.”

How to Build a Bulletproof Cloud Backup System Without Spending a Dime.

(Shared – CIO)

Unseen, All-Out Cyber War on the U.S. has Begun

“There’s a war going on, and it’s raging here at home — not in the streets or the fields, but on the Internet. You can think of it as a war on the digital homeland. If you work for a power company, bank, defense contractor, transportation provider, or other critical infrastructure type of operation, your organization might be in the direct line of fire. And everyone can become collateral damage”

Unseen, All-Out Cyber War on the U.S. has Begun.

(Shared from CIO)

Cannot find data record in database table course_modules.

The error that you may see if you are currently using Moodle may be seen after cron runs or when heavy access occurs.  The error,

!!! Can not find data record in database table course_modules. !!!

The error is related to heavy transactions and what we believe is caching corrupting the database.

To fix the error, you can run this query:

select modinfo from mdl_course where id = PutYourCourseIDHere;

Below, we use MySQL Workbench to run the query on a course id of 2

 

 

There is also a Moodle plugin that rebuilds all of the site’s cache.

https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=2400

Microsoft Surface – an asset to Information Technology

The Microsoft Surface Pro can be an asset to the Information Technology industry with its versatile ability to accept hardware and applications already in the industry.

Microsoft Surface Pro with Microsoft GPS during wireless site surveys.

   

inSSIDer on Microsoft’s Surface Pro

Ubiquiti Spectrum Analyzer and the Surface Pro

Microsoft’s Surface Pro can us 99% of the software on the market.  The versatility of this tablet makes it a good choice for IT Professionals.

Amazingly, you don’t need special apps and most of the software on the market for Windows based computers is free.   For licensed software,  the Windows 7/8 software will work on this tablet.

Look for updates soon on Windows 8 and Microsoft’s Surface.

Optimize your SSD Drive – Updated

Have you recently purchased and cloned your old HDD with a new SSD?  Here’s some tips.  There is a balance of performance vs. extending the life of your SSD.

• Make sure your SATA controller is set to AHCI mode.
  Set AHCI mode in the BIOS if this is not enabled and make changes to the registry (first)
  AHCI is needed for native TRIM support in Windows 7.  This allows TRIM to do its job

• Click on the Start
• Control Panel
• Device manager
• IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
• Do you see the AHCI controller?

How do you enable AHCI?

Before doing the process below,  see if your BIOS has AHCI capabilities

1. Open Registry Editor and move down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci.
2. Right click on the Start DWORD and click on Modify.
   
3. Set the value to 0 and click OK.
   
4. Reboot your computer and enable the AHCI setting the BIOS.  Another restart will be required to finish the driver installation.

The next step is to enable TRIM. Type the following command in a command prompt to enable TRIM:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

Next, turn off Defragmentation.  These drives should not be defragged.

Next, turn off indexing.  This causes unnecessary writes.

Next, Click on Start  -Right-Click Computer – Manage – Services and Applications – Services -Right-Click Windows Search – Properties  Find the Startup type – Select Disabled – Click OK.

(The above disables the “search indexer”)

Next

Click on Start – Computer – Right click on your SSD – Properties – Uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties – Click OK.

Next (Disabling this as recommended by some sites will have a negative effect on performance)

1. Right Click on Computer and select Manage
2. Click on Device Manager
3. Expand Disk Drives
4. Right click on the hard drive and select Properties for that hard drive (you can also double click the drive
5. On the Policies tab:
   Check Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device
6. Hit OK and close the Device Manager
   

Next, disable hibernation

Go to a command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Next, move Power Management to high performance

Adjusting the Power Settings

Adjusting the Power Settings

• Go to Control Panel;
• Select System and Security
• Select Power Options and Click the drop down for Show Additional Plans
• Select the High Performance bubble to apply it
• Click Change Plan Settings to High Performance
• Click Change Advanced Power Settings
• Click the hard disk drop down option
• Change Turn off hard disk after to 0 minutes (Never)
• Select OK
• Select Save Settings

Next, if you have 6 GB of RAM or more, disable the page file.

Click on Start Menu – Right-Click Computer – Properties – Advanced System Settings – Advanced Tab – Performance Settings – Advanced Tab – Click Change under Virtual Memory – Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives – Click on No paging file – Click Set – OK – Restart your computer.

Check for the latest firmware!

TTC Shelbyville’s CIT Program is a member of the National Center for Women and Information Technology

Dawn Babian, System Analyst is the representative for NCWIT. “NCWIT works to correct the imbalance of gender diversity in technology and computing because gender diversity positively correlates with a larger workforce, better innovation, and increased business performance. Increasing the number of women in technology and computing also has the potential to improve the design of products and services to better serve a more diverse population, and increase economic and social well-being by providing more women with stable and lucrative careers.”
“The National Center for Women & Information Technology is a non-profit community of more than 300 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in technology and computing. NCWIT helps organizations recruit, retain, and advance women from K-12 and higher education through industry and entrepreneurial careers by providing community, evidence, and action.” (Read more)

Award for Aspirations in Computing

Looking for statistics on technical women?
Read on for a wealth of interesting facts on the demographics of women in technology

Universities-College-Technical Colleges List

Workbooks and Multimedia

NCWIT Resources

An Example of Successful Women in IT

A great example of how successful women in IT can be comes from one of our own students, Donna Richardson.  Keeping up with Donna for more than 11 years now; I was surprised to miss her article in Computerworld magazine.   Seems fitting since later that year we won the Computerworld Honors program for education.  I still remember the long distance call as Donna called the school for a motivational speech as she was on her way to a Microsoft certification in South Carolina.

Donna Richardson~

Donna (Pierce) Richardson completed the CIT program in 2001 at Tennessee Technology Center in Shelbyville, TN. She started her Information Technology career at a middle Tennessee manufacturer while working to complete the CIT program.

Upon her completion, she went on to work for a contractor as a Level 2 Help Desk Technician for a large corporation in Greenwood, South Carolina. While working there, she completed her Bachelors in Computer Science in 2006 from Limestone College.

She later worked at a global healthcare industry where she worked as a Help Desk Coordinator.  While working  there she completed her Masters in Information Technology, with a Management of Information Systems emphasis from Strayer University in 2008. Additionally she became certified in ITIL Level 3 and also became a member of the Help Desk Institute.

She currently works at Self Regional Healthcare System as Client Analyst III where she coordinates Technology and Software rollout projects.   She teaches Computer Technology courses at Piedmont Technical College.   She has been married for nine years and is the mother of two lovely children ages 2 and 8. Donna and her husband were featured in Computerworld’s article “Geek Love” in the February 2011.

Another example?  Dawn Babian our systems analyst who works at TTC Shelbyville and is the coordinator of the NCWIT program at our institution.    Dawn Babian is a part-time Instructor at the Tennessee Technology Center at Shelbyville , assistant to CIT and Systems Analyst.  Certified by CompTIA, Microsoft and the SANS Institute, Dawn acts as an assistant Network Administrator.  Over the past three years, Dawn has implemented and helped to manage a majority of the online LMS.   She is credited with helping to win the 2011 Computerworld Honors and 2012 TechTarget Customer Service and Integration Awards.

We have dozens of examples of successful ladies in IT.   Check out the National Center for Women and Information Technology.

You have to be versatile in Information Technology

Back in 2007 we published an article on ‘The Challenge of Teaching Information Technology‘.  Recently we were also asked to write and article for TricomTS’s blog The Right fIT (Their Corporate Website is here) on Educating Tomorrow’s IT Professional Today.

So why do I write these articles?  Because Information Technology is growing.   Boot camps are only or should be only for seasoned IT Professionals.  It takes time.  With technology growing, to educate a student and to transfer the amount of information from every resource available – it is not only challenging for the instructor, it is a challenge even to the best students.   IT Professionals cannot take four years to start a career, technology will change so much within a year and the curriculum (accredited) has to be dynamic and change as technology changes.  IT personnel wanting to move up the corporate ladder should go to college later in order to advance.   Many IT pros are specialized career field but a majority of them have to be versatile and their skills have to be diversified.

And with a global economy, IT Professionals have to be lean and they have to learn quicker than ever.

We recently were interviewed by ComputerWorld and provided our look at how the economy and how a global economy changes the way IT thinks, works and reacts to this.  So truly we offer all of this advice to those who want to become an IT professional.  Be ready for change…everyday.  In today’s world, employers do expect a lot out of young IT personnel.  Remember it is the best career in the world to those who have a heart and passion for the industry.

The article from ComputerWorld was picked up by several other magazines and webpages.
CIO Magazine
NetworkWorld Magazine(ARRA)
NetworkWorld Magazine(Leaner Lifestyle)
LinuxWorld Magazine

Information Technology isn’t baking a pie, it’s running a whole bakery.

One of my students who is an IT Manager for a government entity said young IT personnel (including herself when she was new in the industry) often think that information technology is as simple as baking a pie, when in reality they find they are running a whole bakery.

She found out she wasn’t just fixing computers, she was fixing networks, managing domains, working with dozens of proprietary software packages, managing access points, working with security, web pages, portable devices (laptops, netbooks, ipads) and a ton of other tasks.

Information Technology is a skill that takes years to learn.

Optimize your SSD Drive

Have you recently purchased and cloned your old HDD with a new SSD?  Here’s some tips. (Updated!)

• Make sure your SATA controller is set to AHCI mode.
  Set AHCI mode in the BIOS if this is not enabled and make changes to the registry (first)
  AHCI is needed for native TRIM support in Windows 7.  This allows TRIM to do its job

• Click on the Start
• Control Panel
• Device manager
• IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
• Do you see the AHCI controller?

How do you enable AHCI?

Before doing the process below,  see if your BIOS has AHCI capabilities

1. Open Registry Editor and move down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci.
2. Right click on the Start DWORD and click on Modify.
   
3. Set the value to 0 and click OK.
   
4. Reboot your computer and enable the AHCI setting the BIOS.  Another restart will be required to finish the driver installation.

The next step is to enable TRIM. Type the following command in a command prompt to enable TRIM:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

Next, turn off Defragmentation.  These drives should not be defragged.

Next, turn off indexing.  This causes unnecessary writes.

Next, Click on Start  -Right-Click Computer – Manage – Services and Applications – Services -Right-Click Windows Search – Properties  Find the Startup type – Select Disabled – Click OK.

(The above disables the “search indexer”)

Next

Click on Start – Computer – Right click on your SSD – Properties – Uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties – Click OK.

Next

1. Right Click on Computer and select Manage
2. Click on Device Manager
   
3. Expand Disk Drives
4. Right click on the hard drive and select Properties for that hard drive (you can also double click the drive
5. On the Policies tab:
   Check Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device
6. Hit OK and close the Device Manager
   

Next, if you have 6 GB of RAM or more, disable the page file.

Click on Start Menu – Right-Click Computer – Properties – Advanced System Settings – Advanced Tab – Performance Settings – Advanced Tab – Click Change under Virtual Memory – Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives – Click on No paging file – Click Set – OK – Restart your computer.

Check for the latest firmware!

Details about the Mac Malware attacks in 2012

We were interviewed about  Mac Malware with PCWorld and now the details about the attack from Naked Security.

(April 13, 2012)
“Flashback Malware Puts Apple in Security Spotlight: Experts Weigh In” - PCWorld