Why being able to script is important

Many of our students always ask why it is important for them to learn how to program. Our usual response revolves benefits and power of utilizing scripting in network management. A colleague of mine just referred me to a funny story where a guy realized a neighbor was using his wireless Internet connection and as a result segmented his network into a trusted and un-trusted subnet and proceeded to alter how the user's web pages were displayed (flipping the graphics upside down or blurring the images!!!).

Although this was a great example of someone's creativity, I think it is a great example of why encryption is important and the incredible flexibility available to a network administrator when they know how to script. In this case the guy just played around the the graphics of all web pages, but it is easy to extrapolate and imagine the possibilities in terms of application and network monitoring and manipulation.

Upside-Down-Ternet

Online criminals target Facebook and virtual worlds

This has always been a major issue with social networking platforms and nothing really outrageous if you are still careful with your privacy settings. For instance with Facebook you should have your privacy set to disallow anyone but friends for everything. It doesn't eliminate all the data mining that can occur from the third party applications that people install, but that can be addressed by limiting the personal information you post on Facebook. The most personal information I have on Facebook is my e-mail address which opens me up for spam....but then that's what a spam filter is for.

However I think we are going to see an explosion of exploits from social networking sites. I just had a friend who just just down her facebook account after some of her students (she works with juvenile delinquents) managed to get some information off of her account. I believe it might have been a picture or something of that nature. These will likely be the most common types of incidents. As a result I think the teenage generation of today are going to need much thicker skin and will have to be more accepting about people's faults when voting in politicians and people in authoritative positions. It is going to be extremely hard to extinguish one's internet trail.

Online criminals target Facebook and virtual worlds (Times Online)

Rockanagan ’07

I've been listening to a lot of music acts in Second Life lately. This is really an area that I hadn't foreseen as being a major part of my Second Life experience, but it's one of the primary reasons why I start it up now. Every few hours there is always someone shoutcasting a stream to an SL sim. I just learned though that the okanagan is going to be the venue of a little music festival called Rockanagan ’07.  It happens to coincide with the last night of the Willow Hotel. Definitely the end of an era :).

Made it through the first week again...

As is always the case, the first week is always a little hectic as we build on last year and make last minute changes. Each year we become better organized and better prepared. In addition the students are coming in with a better and better understanding of technology and how to use it.

When we first standardized on all our course materials being offered through WebCT, all our e-mails going to MyOkanagan (Pipeline back then) and all the online curriculum through the cisco networking I remember a colleague (who is no longer with the college) saying we were piling way to much on them. I didn't really understand where he was coming from since it was the only way for us to provide a single respository for the class resources and ensure we were able to contact all the students. Each year we have refined the orientation document, and each year the students have made their way through with more ease. This year went seemed also went really well. Of course the real question is how many students are going to come back to us a couple of weeks from now and say they have never been able to get onto the academy website, or didn't know my detailed lecture notes existed. In order to curb those type of issues I elected to print and hand out a conduct and info document the first class. It was a bit of a riot act, but instead of my just telling them about it all, I was able to really to put it to them in writing as well. Again we'll have to see how effective it was next week.

I'm probably going to do a little group based learning again. It was a hit and miss last year, but unfortunately last year was a strange group dynamic. I'm hoping this year the students have a better sense of my expectations and really use it as an alternative method of learning. Of course there will be those who kick back do nothing, but I can only do so much them. At some point they have to be the ones to realize it is their money and time they are wasting. As long as it doesn't interfere with those who are trying to learn they are free to do what they want. I think I've laid out my expectations a little better this year and am better prepared with the labs and the slides. Last year involved a massive rewrite for the NTEN111 course so I had a harder time ensuring the slides were up in time for them to reader them, but this year I managed to get them all up a few weeks in advance. Although I had to realign my slides with the new ITE V4.0 curriculum which took a fair number of hours. However the new curriculum is better organized, and it is always good for the students to have some sort of text they can reference.

IODA Conference a Success

Life has been way to busy lately to get anything down but I thought I should finish up the post on how the whole IODA conference went. As the heading suggests I can humbly say we 'kicked butt'. We put in long hours, but everyone pulled through and for the most part everything went without a hitch....almost. As is usual with anything technological there are so many variables that it would be an absolute miracle were nothing to go wrong. Of course when something decide to decide to pack it in, it will undoubtedly be at the worst possible time. In our case it was Wed evening. Ron and I decided that we would head back to the youth hostel to get ready for the evening and leave Frank and Matt to hold down the Fort for a couple of hours. Unfortunately half an hour later everything stops working and they are left dealing with a room full of people trying to get on the net. We arrived about an hour later to help with the problem and after plugging, unplugging and swapping components and cables we narrowed it down to the little d-link switch. Essentially we were seeing the link flash amber. After swapping it out everything worked fin. To their credit Matt & Frank did find the problem but forgot one little detail which held them back...when going from a switch to a switch you need a crossover cable. The D-links have an automatic cross over port but the cisco switch they replaced it with does not. Just one of those well learned lessons. It was an awsome experience for all the students and a lesson you just couldn't reproduce in the classroom.

That was basically the only problem we had the whole week. Amazing really. I've never really heard of IODA or the field of organizational development, but this conference really opened my eyes to what they are all about. In a nutshell their goal is open communication channels and form better relationships within a company or community in order to make a happier and more productive work environment. A very honourable field and one that I whole heartedly support. In most conferences the IT department is seen but not heard, and when the conference hours are over they just disappear back into their holes. However these guys really walked the walk and included us in the whole conference. We were invited to all the events and enjoyed the French Canadian Night where we were welcomed as the official sponsors, the Western night on thursday and the final wind up on Friday. We met a lot of amazing people and were approached by numerous groups raving about the service we had provided. We really did do OC proud. Hopefully we'll be able to get this into the OC journal so people can really appreciate what we did. I also made some really good contacts with some Hungarians, Belgiums and a lady from Schlumbeger who were either consultants and trainers in OD or part of Human Resources. In fact our networking went well into the wee hours of the morning. Two nights of that and I can tell you that by Saturday and Sunday I was well and truly done for. The awesome outcome from this little party, and some later e-mail discussion,  is that we are now all part of an IODA Practitioners Facebook group. I'm really looking forward to the future discussions as they are all a very enthusiastic group.

By Saturday morning it was just Trevor and Christiane left to Help Ron, Clinton and I. We stripped everything down in about 40mins and were on the road by about 10:30am. As is always the case after all these things it is a little surreal when it all ends. We must have run into the Belgium guys three difference times as we were leaving and each time involved a hug and a goodbye. I personally didn't go for the third one, but it was entertaining.

Clinton, Trevor and I unpacked everything and then made it home for some much needed rest! What a week.