My Blogs :P

Phishing is a whole different story from viruses. Phishing is very similar to fishing, but in this case, phishing is used to steal personal data like credit card numbers, account passwords and data and many more. (Recognizing Phishing Scams and Fraudulent / Hoax Email – Microsoft Security) Phishing is the newest kind of virus that is getting really popular now around the world. Hackers use spam to lure their victims. Usually, they would create fake websites as charities where they would ask for money by asking for your credit card number/password. However, the cheekiest way of getting people to send fraudsters their personal information was by sending their victims emails from their banks/insurance company, businesses, or from social networking sites. They would tell people that they have to renew their accounts because it was “accidentally deleted” and they would have a link to a website that looks exactly like the real thing but it doesn’t really belong to the real site. In the end, all your personal information are being sent to hackers from various parts of the world and they now have unlimited access to your money and/or friends. (Recognizing Phishing Scams and Fraudulent / Hoax Email – Microsoft Security, QuickStudy: Phishing)

The easiest way to safeguard your personal information from identity thieves is to ignore emails that require you to renew an account of some sort or pop up messages that say that you may win/benefit from something if you sign up for it. But to ensure that none of these things get to you in the first place, you should try to update your antivirus and firewall regularly. (Phishing – OnGuard Online)

Works Cited

Computer worms are another kind of virus. A worm is a type of software that focuses on infecting computer networks. They use computer networks and security holes to replicate themselves and they search computers with similar security holes to move to a different machine. An example of a really famous computer worm is called, Code Red worm. It was used to clog the internet pathways. In 2001, when it was released, it was so successful that it almost stopped internet connections into a complete halt. This worm, however, was given three specific tasks. They are to replicate itself in the first twenty days of each month, replace web pages from infected servers to a page that says “Hacked by Chinese” and to launch an attack on the white house official website to overwhelm the site.(Brain)

To protect your computer from getting infected by a worm, you should try to get patches that are provided by the operating system and again by keeping it updated. However, there are some worms that are spread through email attachments. The best way to protect your computer from these is to NEVER open files that have an extension .EXE. Nevertheless, there are occasions where word or excel documents carrying a macro of a worm through an email attachment. So if you receive an email from an unknown sender, it would be best not to open it as well. (What is a computer worm?)

Works Cited

Other than viruses, Trojan horses are also another type of computer bug. They are usually computer programs created by hackers so that they can control your computer when you are running the program that he Trojan is found. These hackers would use this Trojan to get into your accounts to find data like where you live, bank accounts, etc. (Brain, Trojan Horse Computer Infection Symptoms) But the good thing about Trojan horses is that they cannot replicate by themselves. Usually, a hacker would try to send an email with an attachment that contains the Trojan to unsuspecting victims. Once the victim opens the attachment, the Trojan immediately goes to work. Occasionally, hackers would also use chat rooms like Yahoo Messenger or Skype to spread their virus. If they have control over someone’s computer, then they can log in on their account and just send their contacts the virus. (What is a Trojan Horse Virus?)

A symptom that you should look out for if you think that your computer is infected by a Trojan horse is when the computer seems to do stuff on its “own” such as the CD-ROM drawer opening and closing by itself, weird pop-up windows open, your personal settings change by themselves or even your computer taskbar disappears from your screen. (Trojan Horse Computer Infection Symptoms)

To avoid getting your computer infected by a Trojan, you should also try investing on the latest antivirus software in the market. Just like for viruses, you have to make sure that you update the software every now and then because hackers are finding new ways of getting into your computer undetected by the antivirus software.( What is a Trojan Horse Virus?)

Works Cited

“Bugs” in the computer may sound weird but it is a true fact. Computers do have bugs and in this case, they are called viruses. Basically, viruses are just a set of codes that some random person creates to do horrible things to your computer. These codes can tell your computer to do things like, delete files, destroy the hard drives or sometimes just put a weird image on your monitor. Computer Viruses come from downloadable files from the internet, email, infected programs. Usually, viruses only work when the infected file is opened or in use but you can never know if the files or programs are infected or not until you use them. Also, just like humans, computers can infect other computers depending on the codes made by the creator of the virus.(Berger, Brain)

Things to look out for when you have a viral infection in your computer: (Computer viruses: description, prevention, and recovery)

To prevent getting your computer infected by viruses, you should try investing on anti-virus software from companies like, McAfee, Symnatec, and Panda Productions. However, if you don’t strive to keep these software up to date, you are still at risk of getting infected by newly “evolved” viruses each day. (Berger)

Works Cited

Ber

From doing this activity, I’ve learned to use Google’s advanced search and how to utilize its functions. Before, I’ve used Google’s advanced search back when I was in my old school. But they didn’t really teach me how to use them. So, I never really used it for any of my research projects and papers. This activity also taught me the “NETS” concept, start Narrowing, use Exact phrases, Trim the url, and seek Similar pages, to help me use search for better sites in the internet. I bet in the near future, I’ll be using it more because of the NETS concept and I’ve finally learned how to use it properly.

Part 1

1. Atlantis: 39,500,000
   • movies, Film shuttle, cast in the films, cartoon
2. atlantis continent -shuttle, -film, -movie: 70,900
   • sites and books about the lost continent,Forums
3. waterbury Vermont OR VT -Connecticut -CT: 435,000
   • lattitude longtitude of the place, resort, trivial knowledge, weather
4. Narrow

Part 2

1. San Diego State University: 5,260,000
   • universty site, state, their courses, sister schools, wikipedia page of school

2. “San Diego State University”: 1,420,000

   • Official site, official site links, courses of the school from official site, sister schools

3. “Bill 602P”: 6,080

   • postal tax and email tax

4. “We know he has weapons of mass destruction”: 634

   • News sites, News articles

5. “demonstrating genuine leadership”: 757

   • Forums and blog sites

Part 3

1. After the first trim, we saw the index.
2. After the second trim, we saw a site that shows projects for different grades and classes.
3. After the third trim, we saw the introduction of education found in the University of Richmond
4. After the fourth trim, we saw that the University of Richmond offers major classes, undergraduate classes and graduate classes.
5. After the fifth and last trim, we got to the homepage of the site.
6. Since the URL was wrong, we trimmed the URL until we got to the homepage.

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wmi/wq/collin/index.html : Nothing appears

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wmi/wq/collin : Still nothing

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wmi/wq : Directory listing denied

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wmi : West Middle Island Elementary School website

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us : Longwood Home Page

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wq.html : a worthy webquest from the site

Part 4:

1. http://www.ssischool.org/(similar) : 27
2. http://www.ssischool.org/ (links to page) : 3
3. kids.msfc.nasa.gov (similar) : 27
4. kids.msfc.nasa.gov (links to page) :636

Today, the world around us is advancing really quickly in many different ways. However, there are still parts in our world that is, until now, in poverty in a very modern world. Now, why are these people still suffering, especially with all the wealth and technology that we now acquire? On the 6^th of November, my school organized an event that would teach its Middle and High School students about the situation of poverty on earth. They created games and workshops that would help open the eyes of their students, to help them realize how severe poverty is in the world, mainly because approximately 45% of our world’s population is currently living between $1 and $2 a day. Since my school invited a group of people from the Crossroads group to talk more about poverty and they also organized a simulation where small group of students will live in a 10X10 mat that represents an average house found in a slum. These families would then have to make sure that they get enough money by making paper bags, to feed its members and pay for the rent. If they have extra money, they can use it to get an education, medical care or even sanitation privileges. However, if they don’t get to pay the rent, they would be forced to live under the “bridge” where a loan shark would lend them enough money for their family to survive. In return, that family would have to make as much paper bags that the loan shark wants.

In my opinion, this whole experience kind of reminded me of the place where I lived before in the Philippines. When I was there, every single day, I would pass by huge slum areas when I go to school or into town. It makes me sad because the people living in that area live in homes that are about to break or fall down. However, when I moved overseas, I sort of forgot about this because I now live in a better place. But on this day, I’ve realized that there are actually more people living in the conditions that my fellow Filipinos are living in back in the Philippines.

The speaker from Crossroads also made me feel that I can help these people and help change the world even though I’m only sixteen years old. He made me wonder how I could help, even though I was pretty clueless at first, but now I was able to think about one idea. My dad works for a major shoe and apparel company here in Vietnam, and if a group of people in our school go to the company that my dad works for and present to them about the fact that almost half of the world’s population is living in extreme poverty and that our school is trying to build a school for this specific group of people in a province here in Vietnam. If we do manage to open their eyes just like Crossroads did to me then maybe they can make or donate a couple hundred of shirts and shorts for the students of this new school to wear.

In my Instrumental class, I have learned that we have to be very patient especially when you get pieces where you only play the background music. Especially for me since i play the alto saxophone and my instrument doesn’t usually fit in most pieces. But it is my dream to play in a Jazz Band because there, i can play the melody and playing Jazz is really fun. Or maybe I can play in a Sax Quartet. However, it is really hard to find other saxophonists here in Vietnam since they don’t really play the saxophone and buying an instrument alone is very expensive. Anyways, the most boring part about my instrumental class is the in class rehearsals. This is because the conductor usually stops the band whenever I start playing so I rarely get to play in class. Oh well, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to play the music I like at the school concerts

The begin this project, I opened my photo in photoshop, then, selected the background of the picture using the Magic Wand tool and used the Lasso tool to add the rest of the background to the selection by pressing Shift and clicking the spots that needs to be added to the selection.

Next, I selected a color that I wanted for the background. In order to change the color of the selection, I pressed Alt+Backspace.

Then I saved this selection by going to the Select menu+Save Selection and named it “Background.” I repeated this process but clicked the Select menu+Inverse+Select menu+Save Selection and named it “Head.”

To make the puzzle pieces, I loaded the Channel “Head” by clicking the Select menu+Load Selection. Then I pressed the Alt key and selected the left side of my head. I called it “left” using the same steps that i used to save “Background” and “head”. After that, I saved the right side of my head by selecting the inverse of Left.

Then i loaded the right selection of my head. This is where i will put my puzzle pieces for the project.

By Holding the Alt key and making random figures to the selection I was able to make the puzzle pieces that I am happy with.  Of course, I had to save each one of them after .  After that, I was able to make 5 puzzle pieces on one half of my face and added different colors to each piece.

Then I chose 5 different pictures that represented me.

To insert the photos into the puzzle pieces, I first selected the piece that the picture would go into, opened the pictures in photoshop, selected the whole picture and pasted it to the puzzle piece. I repeated this process to fill all of the puzzle pieces.

I loaded the Background selection again to write Lakers without having to write on my face. Then, I chose a nice filter for it to make it look nicer. To do this, i clicked the filter menu and chose the filter that i liked.

To finish up my project i selected the other side of my head that doesn’t have graphics on so that i can use a filter. 

Then I saved the whole project as a JPEG file.