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Assignment 6 of the ABC’s of technical writing

Hi foolks,
Some days ago, I completed the assignment for assignment 6. In the lesson, it talked about different ideas of making sure you were able to do the task, and the assignment asked what method you’d use to complete the tasks assigned. I got a perfect score, and here’s what I wrote.

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One aspect of being a technical writer is making sure the information you are delivering is understandable to the end user as best as possible. As shown in the example in my last assignment, I tried to make sure you could open word, type a document, and save it for the first time. Most people may not know how to open a program, especially if they have never used a computer before. Making sure the steps are thorough is going to help in the long run. If possible, I would try to include images and break up the manual like I did when I wrote it so they can take a break to digest the information. I also would include a table of contents like I did for this book so they can find the information they are looking for.

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Effective E-mail communication, assignment 4: different styles of E-mail

In lesson 4 just submitted on July 23 and graded, it asked us to write a sample E-mail in the conversational, formal, and informal tones. This is a made up station name, based for this assignment, and as far as I’m aware, nobody is named here that I know of.

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Jared Rimer
Effective E-mail Communication, assignment 4: tone of E-mail
July 23, 2016

This assignment asks to write an E-mail in three methods, formal, conversational, and informal.

Formal:
Subject: Thanks for broadcasting with us
Dear Mr. Jones,
Thanks for applying to our Internet Radio station, the Jams. The staff hopes that you will enjoy your stay here. We definitely look forward in your show format, and your starting date which you put in your application will be fine. Please let us know if you have any questions, comments, or concern.
Sincerely,
Jared

Conversational:
Hello Mr. Jones,
We are happy you applied to our s station. We are looking forward to your show, and you’ve been approved for starting. Please let the staff know if you need any assistance.
Regards,
Jared

Informal:
Hi John,
Thanks for applying with us. We’ve approved your application, and we look forward in you starting with us. If you need help, just let us know.
Jared

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Taking from the other assignments, I’m naming it, and tagging it in such a way to remind me what I’m to do in case I get interrupted during the assignment process.

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Effective E-mail communication: assignment 3: principals of use

Principals of use was discussed in assignment 3. The assignment asked us to discuss ones we could use. Here’s my assignment for that one.

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One principal I think I’ll try to incorporate is the E-mail subject line or what the lesson calls headline. While I personally read every message, as the subject line may not be enough or not read it all, I know that we are communicating with sighted individuals who use their eyes to read, not their ears. Their eyes tell them what they need to know, while access technology does not read the entire subject line, depending how long it is. I don’t think i’ve ever used more than 7 words in my subject lines, but I like the idea.

I think being clear on your E-mail is important. Number 2 of this lesson talks about how some E-mail is written in such a way where someone needs to only come in on certain days, and work from home other days, while showing respect to the supervisor. I think thats important.

I also think that not sending E-mail while angry is a good idea. You may send a bad impression. That may or may not backfire against you and your image depending on what the situation is.

The final thing I think we all need to do is make sure we spell people’s names correctly. I definitely need to work on that by using my access technology to go through the person’s name letter by letter. I misspelled Sean’s name when writing him. Sean is an instructor with universal class who teaches the internet specialist 101. I ended up reading his name once, and vowed to spell it correctly. He never corrected me, but I made it a point not to write Shawn or Shaun, once I realized that I needed to change the spelling. I think he never sent anything about correcting me as Sean is spelled differently, but yet the synthesizer says Shawn or Shaun the same.

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Effective E-mail communication: a business E-mail that gets read

In lesson 2 of the Effective E-mail communication class, it talked about business E-mail that gets read. While I based it off of something true, and I didn’t include a subject line as discussed, it still passed. Here is such an E-mail as part of this assignment.

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Dear Joe,

Thanks for calling me today to discuss opening an E-mail address elsewhere due to your difficult situation on sending E-mail to someone.  We've discussed a lot of things, and I want you to take the time to think about them.  

First, we discussed the different ways E-mail accounts are done, and the fact you can't just leave it open.  This is the perfect point to get home, and I feel you understand it.  

Second, we discussed different services and why E-mail may be difficult for you.  You use a telephone system, and this can have some challenges.  

Please let me know how i can help you in the future in communicating by E-mail to people who are having trouble.

—
Jared Rimer
The Jared Rimer Network, where everything is listed in one place.
www.jaredrimer.net

I feel that this would be read, and this conversation actually happened today. I feel Joe understood what his delema is, and if I had his address, I’d let him know and remind him about his options and how he can proceed.

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Effective E-mail communication, assignment 1, E-mails that bother you

On the first assignment of this class I started but now deciding to share about, the instructor asked us to describe E-mails that annoy us or what annoys us in regards to E-mail communication. Here is my first assignment of this course.

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Hello,
The most irritating E-mail I get are the E-mails that don’t seem to have proper structure. Recently I delt with a company who did replace my item, and I was very nice to them. However, maybe I’m bias, but I didn’t think the E-mail was written well at all. Here is one such E-mail.

Dear Jared Rimer , Thank you so much for your communication and letting us know the problem. We do appreciate it so much. We are so sorry to know that the item was not make you satisfied. Could you please take a photo of the item and tell me your order number? No hard feelings, it’s just our routine work and will also help us find out the exact reason for the problem in order to avoid the same problem again. And we will surely give you a most satisfactory solution for you. Thank you so much for your help and understanding. And we sincerely believe nothing can be a problem with communication. Best regards,

I don't even know who I was even talking to.  I agree that effective communication should be part of solving any type of issue whether an item became defective, or whether we're writing a letter for a job purpose.  If you are dealing with the public, you should have people who are fluent in the language.  

Another example:

Hello, I’m so sorry about the inconvenience caused to you. This is an exception. How about I give you a coupon code that value $6.99, and it only for the purchase of our products, Could we trouble you place an order again with this coupon code .If you don’t like it, we would like to refund $6.99 to you to show our sincerity. What’s your idea?Do you agree with me? Any question or problem, do not hesitate to contact us. It’s our biggest pleasure to serve you. Look forward to your reply.
While I take these from E-mail through a buffer my access technology provides to put it in here, the best regards, and looking forward to your reply are where they should be on their own line. However, I have no idea who I’m dealing with, and of course, I can’t even call them by phone which is another pet peeve of mine.

What does this tell me about the sender?  It tells me that they are trying to help a community and their language is not as good as someone who speaks the language.  I don't expect perfect, but I would like to see it done enough to understand.  I don't see this with all E-mail, I see this type of thing more with companies outside the United States.  

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Internet specialist 101: E-mail and when is it best used

Going back in to the archives, I’m posting assignment 3 of the Internet Specialist 101 course. On this course, we learn a lot of things, but this lesson talked about E-mail, what constitutes an E-mail address, and ways to use it. The lesson assignment asked why we would use an E-mail address.

The E-mail address given is one of many for me, you may use it if you want.

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An E-mail address is established in two parts. The first is unique to you, while the second is unique to the ISP or site you signed up with. For example, my address is which has my first name, and personal.jaredrimer.net is where it belongs as part of my sub domain on jaredrimer.net which is the TLD on the site.

I use my E-mail address for communication, get on lists with another, and I also use it for business. I rarely use BCC, but have when needed to send a message to staff as well as a corespondant. I mainly use the to field, or the carbon copy field. I personally do not deal with confidential stuff, but if I did, I would use BCC more. In fact, today, I’d use a file sharing service such as sendspace, or dropbox, to send a link and make the recipient download it.

Most ISP’s and mail providers have limits on attachments, usually about 20mb now a days. Back in the day, attachment sizes were 10mb. I use attachments all the time, and am causcious on what I open because of the virus problem which really got started after Melissa, Nimda, and Code Red in the early part of the 2000s era. In fact, Code Red took out superior-software.com and what was the beginning of MENVI which was hosted there until 2005. Now, I run a network and am aware of the security risks of what is going on.

When I started with E-mail, we did not have anything to worry about, and web sites were basic. Now, we must be careful what we open, what files do to our PC’s, and teach people every day what is up in the security field.

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The ABC’s of technical writing, assignment 4: 5 types of writing techniques

Hi folks,
There is no assignment 3 as part of this course. There is an assignment 4, and then we go to 6. I did give the instructor something to read as something for 3, which they may read or not.

As part of the 4th assignment, it talked about different types of writing styles. The assignment asked to discuss 5 different types that were important to you and it was to be 3 paragraphs. I think i had some fun with this one, as I took a portion of a book I wrote a long time ago, and then talked later on on how I could improve on this work after taking this course. I only took from one section, but it took the assignment in to a third page. While the one blog post was over 600 words, word indicated this one was over 1000. I put my name, assignment number, and what it was as well as the date for my sake as I saw it done in another course and thought, why not. Its part of good organization, which a tech writer needs to have.

If you have any comments, please feel free to share. I’ll approve the likes, retweets, and so forth so that people can get credit for sharing. I don’t mind that, and I see we had that on the last assignment I submitted here.

I hope you all enjoy this one, I think I’ll do good on it. It was worth 40 points so I hope this will do. The assignment will be after the jump.

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Jared Rimer
ABC’s of technical writing
Assignment 4: 5 writing techniques and why they should be used
July 20, 2016

I think the first writing technique that should be used is the writing like you talk. I’ve tended to write that way especially when explaining something, and I’ve never had any complaints. For example, here’s what I did when I wrote my book many years ago to explain how to save a document for the first time.

 Let's create a simple document in Microsoft Word.  To open Microsoft's Word do the following steps.  But first, before I give you the steps, let me tell you that most computers these days have a Windows logo key on the keyboard usually next to the control or alt which opens the start menu.  You can also do this by doing control+escape.  Now, do the following to open Word.

 1.  Control Escape or Windows logo key.
 2.  Hit the letter p to open the programs sub-menu.
 3.  Hit the letter m several times until you hear or see Microsoft Word.
 4.  Hit the enter key.

 Notice it took 4 steps to open Microsoft Word.  We can create a shortcut to the Desktop so that you can open it in one.  We'll do that later.  But for now, if you haven't hit the Enter key on Microsoft Word, do that now.  It should open if installed correctly.  Microsoft Word has the extension of .doc.  Each file has an extension which is unique to a particular application.  An

application is a program that you use to do your tasks. Some applications open several types of files. Microsoft Word is an example of this type of program. Let’s type a sample document into
Word now. You can type anything you like. When you’re done with your document, return to this manual. To save this particular document, we need to access the file menu which we do by
hitting ALT+F then the letter A. You could, however, arrow down with the arrow keys to find the item named “save as” and press the ENTER key. A property sheet appears with the following
fields:

 1.  Name edit box.
 2.  Save as type pull-down combo box.
 3.  Save button.
 4.  Cancel button.
 5.  Look-in combo box.
 6.  A list view of all directories and file names in the current format in a particular directory.

 We want to be in the name edit box.  Here let's just save it to the hard drive which is usually the C drive on a computer.  A computer can come with multiple hard drives, but usually only come  with one.  Just type a file name like test document and press enter.  Unless an error dialogue appears, your file is successfully saved.  From now on, use the open dialogue by pressing the key combination CONTROL + O to open it.  It's the same type of property sheet as the save as dialogue box.  If you forget the file name, just SHIFT + TAB over to the list view and select the file from there.  Also, from now on, you can save by simply hitting the key combination CONTROL + S to save it a second time.  With Jaws, a property sheet is a dialogue box.

Since I was explaining this from a perspective of using access technology, step by step seemed to work as most computer users are not aware of keyboard steps, although a person who is disabled would be more apt to using the keyboard than the sighted counterpart. It really depends on your target audience, but being clear to all audiences;l is especially important.

I really think that getting to the point is very important. With the above, I could probably shorten it quite a bit, but this was written many years ago and I even used the PC to remind myself how to do it, then wrote it as I did it. I’m not exactly sure how I would rewrite this portion of the chapter again, but it is definitely something to consider since word has definitely changed since this was written. I agree with the lesson when it talks about telling the reader that the power button to the PC does something with the electricity, in fact, I have no idea what it does except that it boots up in to Windows and that is what is important. Today, I could include screen shots of the various dialogues, with the text descriptions as shown above.

Using examples of someone using the product is definitely important. As described above, I actually did this, although I never saved the document, but described the dialogue so the user can visualize and see what it looks like and then talk about how to save the document. I could simplify this by talking about what the dialogue has and then tell them how to save it without going in to any detail on what each aspect of the dialogue box they see or hear is.

I take spelling very seriously. I’ve even seen courses here that have some errors, and access technology is not going to tell me what it is, but the ear will as it reads the document. I’ve notified instructors on errors, and thats because I know what it might be. They’ve thanked me, but a well thought out, spell checked document will definitely go a long way.

Punctuation is important. While I use punctuation in my writing, I should learn when to use certain punctuation. I use commas, periods, question marks, and even some exclamation points, but i don’t know when to use dashes or hyphens. Sometimes I use a semi-colon, but not sure if I use them correctly and that is definitely important.

In the above, I did not use any type of technical language that could not be understood. I kept it simple, and straightforward. If you’d like the whole book for review, I’d be happy to send it. I did not use a thesaurus at all for the book, I thought it all out and people enjoyed the work I put in to it.

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Enjoy! The boards await you.

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The ABC’s of technical writing, assignment 2

On assignment 2, not formatted right as I did it on a mac instead of the PC, but still got my 30 points. On the assignments, it wants us to discuss two aspects of technical writing and what would be expected of each. It was to be in two paragraphs which I did, but it came back as one.

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One aspect of technical writing is the software documentation. Software documentation includes any aspect of writing material associated with the particular software product. For example, you have an internet browser, and in the browser, you have different options and other things that need to be documented for the user so they can read about how it works. This would be put under the user documentation aspect of the technical writing umbrella. The other aspect of technical writing is the full on technical writing which programmers would use to document their progress and what it means for others to work on the project as well. This is good for open source projects which use an API (application program interface) where it hooks in to other parts of the net. The other aspect of technical writing is blogs. Blogs can be used to communicate hidden features of products, or to generate conversation about certain aspects. I’ve shared lesson 1 of this course, and other assignments from other courses I’ve taken here. Interesting thoughts on what I’ve written and other views. I do not share the lesson text, I just share my assignment only. You can check out the blog at https://technology.jaredrimer.net to see how i’ve incorporited this.

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The abc’s of technical writing, lesson 1

Technical writing has changed through the years. Universal course has a course on technical writing, and it covers everything from podcasts, to screencasts and other aspects in the very first lesson. The first lesson of this class is asking to describe who would benefit from technical writing, and describe the people who may be in the field of technical writer. I linked to the sepdspace folder both in word, and here, for your convenience as you read the assignment. What else would a technical writer be doing do you think besides writing, podcasting, blogging, and the like? The assignment follows.

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The assignment is asking to describe who may be responsible for doing technical writing. According to one paragraph, it says: ” Depending on a company’s size and needs, it may hire one or more full time technical writing specialists, or it may occasionally hire contract writers or outsource writing needs to freelance writers or agencies. In other cases, engineers, developers, project managers, and others involved in the creation of a product will be called upon to create user documentation and training materials for the product they are developing. If the term technical writing is defined a bit more broadly, it can include marketing and public relations materials, brochures, sales letters, and trade articles.”

Any particular profession such as hardware and software, hospitals, and other areas where information needs to be given to the public would be professions where technical writers would be needed. Programmers, engineers, and even the technical support specialists themselves may be called upon to write the documentation for the company, unless it gets outsourced to a company whose specialty is to do the work for you.

According to the lesson, technical writing does not mean writing anymore. It may include items such as screencasts, podcasts, and even blogging. I have done podcasts as a blind iphone user, learning software, and demonstrating it in understandable language. You are welcome to check out the sendspace folder where various pieces of software for the phone are demonstrated. Someone told me they liked the work I’ve done with these demos.

Since I have had to teach access technology, even old access technology from a young age, my communication in this field has been good, and I have been known to be patient with people who are new. I’ve tried to teach someone 70 years old how to use Windows, and as I mentioned on the forum, I have a text representation of a book I am willing to share upon request to show how i’ve done writing. I do know it has changed, and thats why I’m here. I’ve adapted to the podcast scene, ad i would do video if i had the right equipment and it was requested of me.

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I hope you enjoy the class assignment, and I’ll post more if I feel it is good to share and bring up for discussion. Enjoy!

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protecting children on the internet

As part of the internet specialist 101 course, we discussed protecting children on the Internet, and we were asked what we’d do. This is a topic more true today than any other time as old as Shaun and I are, and I’m curious on your thoughts. Your comments await the boards, and it starts after the ruler separator mark.

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One thing parents can do is to use software. The lesson talks about different types of software to protect children from various sites. I personally don’t think its a good idea to use such software, as the lesson indicates, and guru’s like Kim Komando has said, it can be worked around by kids today. Kim Komando www.komando.com has commandments for parents and children to use. It is advised to read and sign them. It talks about talking to parents about things that seem wrong, and also who they’re talking to. Software can also help by logging keystrokes and E-mailing it to you, but I could see a child saying something to the effect how thats not right.

I agree with the computer being in a safe place in the house. This way, a parent can make sure they are aware of what the child is doing. I also don’t like the idea that 3 to 5 year olds are using computers. I didn’t start using one till I was at least 8 or 9, but then again, the Net wasn’t that big of a deal back then like it is now.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know if chat rooms are a big thing like they were when i first came on the net. Instant messaging like MSN, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger are not used that much anymore, as MSN is gone, Skype owns that arena now. I don’t personally use Yahoo or AIM anymore, as everyone I know who used them are not anymore so I am not. Bulletine board systems on web sites are more popular, although accounts are needing to be created to access them.

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What do you think? Do you think this is good, or is there more? Once again, the comment boards await you.

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encryption, how important is it?

encryption, how important is it? This was the topic of lesson 13 of the internet specialist 101 course. I’m trying to find the good papers I think we can discuss, and I think this one is going to be one. Your thoughts are welcome as usual.

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Encryption has many benefits. The most important benefit is the protection of data including usernames, passwords, and credit card and banking information. Most web sites today are going to encryption due to the recent supposed hacks of data. While that can help, hackers are very sophistocated, and having an encrypted connection can help to a point. We still need to deal with the social engineering, and other attacks that plague the net today which could bypass the secure aspects which is how some of these hacks are made.

I do use paypal, and find it to be of use for payments. I also have a payment processor now for credit cards as well.

I do shopping online, and it doesn’t surprise me that the lesson indicates that it is safer than giving your credit card to a clerk for processing. Even today, most clerks are having you doing the swiping, and target and other hacks among the last few years prove that it is not as secure as we thought. I am not sure how these POS (payment operating systems) work, except they use a version of XP that is not patched and is open to the internet.

I have paid people for services using my bank. I’ve never stepped foot in to my bank, I’ve set up bill pay, and they have mailed a check. In one case, the check never made it, and I told the bank who just mailed another one and cancelled the check they sent. No money was taken until the check was deposited. Online sure makes this process a lot easier.

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The board awaits you.

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Newsgroups and older technology

Lesson 11 of the internet specialist 101 course talked about newsgroups and other older technologies and wanted us to describe them. How about discussing this lesson?

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A newsgroup is used to communicate with people who subscribe to it. One person I know, Steve Gibson, still uses newsgroups today. Most ISP’s have connections to thee news group community. It is used to communicate with like minded people about whatever the news group moderator wants it to be.

For example, GRC’s site has multiple newsgroups that cover anything that Steve has like Security Now, Spinrite, his new creation SQRL (squirrel) and others. He uses it exclusively to communicate with people who help him test products, give him ideas, and even a miscelanious category if I remember right.

Back in the day, we used DOS to connect to the net and connected a certain way to the newsgroup server. Now-a-day, you can use a program like Outlook Express and thunderbird to connect to the server. I’ve not used newsgroups in a long time, I personally prefer E-mail lists which can work the same way. My personal web site lists E-mail lists I personally moderate, and you just need a modern browser to subscribe or a modern E-mail client to receive and send messages to it.

What interested me about the discussion of newsgroups was the fact that they have been around since I was born. That is a facinating stat seeing that I’ve only been using the Internet since the mid 90s.

E-mail lists can also be moderated, however, the thread can only be stopped by an E-mail to the list asking, or by moderating it until all messages about said topic dies. Thats probably the only hassle to E-mail lists over newsgroups, but I’m not too fond of forums because they can be riddled with Spam even with captcha turned on.

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Feel free to discuss this one, and the boards await you.

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Voip as part of the internet specialist 101

as part of the internet specialist 101, VOIP and related technology was discussed. Assignment 12 talked about a question of what VOIP was and why you would use it. Here’s what I wrote, and you are welcome to partake this discussion.

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VOIP can be used to receive and make calls. It is usually cheaper than traditional telephone lines, especially for international calls. I’ve used Skype, Gizmo Project, Net2Phone, and other projects to make and receive calls. Now-a-day, I mainly use skype. Most Internet companies such as comcast, offer phone service. I personally would make sure I had a land line wired connection in case of emergency, because VOIP does not work with E911 services. Although that has changed as of late, one thing to keep in mind is the Internet connection. If the connection is having trouble, than your call may have issues. It reminds me of the old cell phone calls at times. International calling with VOIP can be as low as 2 cents a minute, where the landline can cost as much as $.18 a minute as a minimum.

One thing i always tell people that if they use VOIP, and the Internet goes out, you don’t have phone service. That may be important for people to know about, because you may have services that utalize the phone line to place a call if something goes wrong, such as smoke detectors, the alarm, and even medical devices. I have heard that devices have issues calling out using VOIP.

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The comment boards await you. Enjoy!

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Social media assignment

Lesson 6 talks about social media in the universal class course dealing with internet specialist 101. I feel i did well in this. The lesson asked to discuss three types of social media, and why one would use them. I use several, and one was not discussed as part of the lesson. I discuss why i use them and what they’re used for. Do you use social media, and if so, why?

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Three types of social media include blogs, facebook, and twitter. I have all three, in fact, I also have podcasts. All are used for various purposes, based on the persons needs.

I have a blog located at https://technology.jaredrimer.net which discusses what I’m reading, my thoughts and opinions on various tech topics. I even have a contributing author who also posts things of interest. The blog links to various articles, and I’ve even shared lesson 5’s assignment there as I thought it would be cool to share what I write and learn about as well. The site also has an RSS feed which people can subscribe to so they can get the cast. The podcast is released when time allows, and may or may not include links to other articles. It covers various different types of things such as demonstrations of technology, my thoughts and opinions of articles, and even listener contributions. The RSS feed is https://technology.jaredrimer.net/audio if you wish to subscribe.

The blog also has an RSS feed. https://technology.jaredrimer.net/feed may be used to get the posts delivered to your RSS reader.

My facebook and twitter post my blog posts, as well as anything else I chose to post on it. I’m very selective on what I post, and when searching for my name, you’ll find things on me. My web site also has public links should you wish to check it out.

I use social media to get word out about my podcasts, and other things. One of my twitter feeds is specifically for one of my projects White Cane Travel. Each account created by twitter must have a different E-mail address. Rules only prohibit one facebook account which is fine by me.

Facebook is not just for posting, but for groups as well. I know of many groups on there, one of which I’m a part of. Twitter doesn’t have groups per se, but they have lists.

The lesson is a bit out of date, as Linkedin is not discussed. While I have an account on there, it is more of a professional network. My achievement of passing the work safety 101 course I took there is posted there. I use it to put a presence of what I’m doing professionally, and I sometimes post articles people should read. I’m very selective there.

Another form of social media which I use which is not discussed is Youtube. I subscribe to various video channels to get info. I have not posted a video yet, and I’m not sure what to use my channel for. Some people post personal things, while others post more professional things. The choice is all up to the user.

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Protecting yourself from hackers

Hi folks,
I’m on a site called universal class, and it has various kinds of courses you can take. If you’ve got a library card, you’re signed up for the premium plan, you can take as many courses as you want, limited to 5 courses, and I’m taking one that is preaching to this blog. The course is entitled Internet specialist 101, and I only scored an 18 on one assignment because I was not clear enough. However, thats not why I’m writing this blog post. I’m writing it to share one of my assignments, which was lesson 5’s assignment on what to do to protect yourself from hackers. I’d like to share my assignment with you in case you’d like to comment on it. Below, is the assignment, and feel free to comment on it as you see fit. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the blog and podcast!

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One of the things you can do to protect yourself from hackers is to install an Antivirus program. The Antivirus program is designed to pick up files and processes that may not be safe. This is done through pattern analysis, where the program is designed to look at what the file does, and if it thinks it is suspicious, it will remove or quarantined the file so your PC does not fall victim to whatever the file does.

The other thing is to install a firewall. Windows comes with its own firewall, and after XP service pack 2, it is turned on by default. Your router may have one by default and it may be on, so with that, plus the one for your PC, you should be fine. The firewall asks about connections outgoing, and will analyze traffic coming inbound to the PC. Zone Alarm was the first firewall known for the PC which asked about every process, and it learned over time.

One of the things not mentioned in this lesson is being careful what you visit. Today, websites can be compromised, even the legit ones. My own web site had a script on it, and the site turned bad, and my provider was contacted. After signing up for Google Webmaster tools, I learned about what the issue was, which is what I had thought. The web site was flagged as it was compromised. The Antivirus software such as Trend Micro has web analysis so it looks at the traffic and can block behavior that is melicious without compromising the good part of the site.

I have never clicked on adds. Being visually impaired, I tend to leave the add networks alone. While I do run one, I run one based on the site, and I even look at the site first. Add networks such as double click have recently been known to have some issues with add delivery and can pose a problem to users. It is suggested by the lesson to be careful what you click. For those of us who are visually impaired, it is best to be careful what we press enter on.

E-mail is another aspect of a problem. More and more spam is coming in, and a lot of it can have content not healthy to the computer. The lesson talks about making sure you don’t open the files, and to question what is sent if you are not sure. On my technology podcast, I talk extensively all the time about being careful on what people should open, and highlight what is out there to protect ourselves. Steve Gibson said in one podcast, there is no such thing as 100 percent security, and that is so true.

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That completes the assignment, please have your thoughts in the comments, and enjoy!

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