Do Not Take Internet Security Lightly
The Internet is both — a wonderful place, and also a potentially dangerous world. Beyond containing so much information and websites that help us in our daily lives, it also has many fraudsters, scammers, dangerous programs (Such as viruses, malware, spyware, adware etc.) that can steal your personal information (For identity theft by scammers.) or may end up erasing your hard drive and cost you hundreds of dollars to have your system repaired. In the following paragraphs are some tips that can help you protect your computer and yourself from the hazards that exist online.
1. Anti-Virus and Internet Security Software: This type of software is designed especially to protect your computer system, personal information and yourself while online. Anti-virus software comes in two main categories, freeware versions or yearly subscription services. The main difference between the two is functionality and the online database. Yearly subscription services update their virus databases more regularly, which offer you a greater level of protection. Also, subscription services also offer a higher level of user support, as freeware versions don’t have anything available should your system have problems.
Anti-virus software can often come in internet security packages. These contain all you need to feel safe online, not just with viruses. The programs come with firewalls, backup software, identity theft and personal information protection applications, and other services depending on the company or the product. Should you choose a free anti-virus program, you will have to also download and install separate programs for adware, as a firewall service etc.
2. Backup of Your Computer System and Files: This is the best way to keep all your information safe and secure. Computers aren’t perfect, and will have problems over time. Backing up your files and documents regularly (About once a week is recommended.) will keep all your valuable information safe. There are many different types of backup software available, from freeware to paid-for versions.
For your home computer, a free program is perfect and will do all you require. The options available to backup your files have grown with computers. An external hard drive is highly recommended due to the size and speed it is capable of. For those who don’t have access to this, blank DVDs and CDs do help, however for large amounts of data they can be quite the pain due to how many discs you will need. Also, some companies offer an online backup service, with the option to purchase more data storage should you need it.
3. Passwords and Security: Passwords are often the only way to get into your personal information, and the type of password you use can determine how secure your information (Such as banking, email, social networking profiles etc.) is. Many sites will let you know how secure your password is and also recommend what you should put in your password. A mixture of lowercase and capital letters, the use of numbers, avoiding birthdates or other easily known numbers is recommended, as well as using secret questions that are hard to guess.
Computer security cannot be taken lightly. Learn about important Internet security tips. If you want to learn more about Internet security, we can help you with that too.
Three Things That Cause Scrum Backlash (And How to Fix Them)
Most people hear the word “Scrum” and think of something thats stuck to the bottom of their shoe. Au contraire. Scrum is an agile software development methodology designed to foster iterative and incremental development. Scrum projects are broken down into 24-hour development cycles contained within 30 day sprints. Team members agree upon which work items for the product (the product backlog) they will tackle in the next 30 days; this becomes the sprint backlog. The goal at the end of 30 days is to have a working application with a certain number of features completed.
I am a huge Scrum acolyte. On many teams, this makes me a minority of one. I have been on several teams that have used the Scrum project management methodology for both software development and technical documentation production. In each case, the backlash against Scrum was so great that these teams eventually abandoned it in favor of that tried-and-true methodology called “Whatever We Were Doing Before Scrum.”
What is it that makes teams resistant to Scrum? In my experience, there are three major blocking points. The good news is, none of these need be fatal. Teams can, and should, adjust Scrum to meet both the needs and temperaments of their members.
(1) No one likes adapting a “new process.”
People are creatures of habit. Most of us do not like change. We are especially averse to change when it means more work! And no doubt about it: particularly in its early stages, Scrum is work. The team must create a product backlog, a long list of items broken down into tasks less than 16 hours long. Team members must assign projected costs to their work quanta for the first time, usually for the first time ever. Daily meetings, while short, interrupt the flow of the work day. (More on the daily meeting below.) All of this sudden change breeds anxiety, resentment, and fatigue.
Scrum is structured as an iterative and incremental process. Ironically, most teams do not take an iterative and incremental approach to Scrum! Teams aiming to tackle projects using Scrum should consider adapting a few features at a time, rather than the whole kit and caboodle. For example, a team can spend a month or two using the concept of a sprint backlog, but not concern themselves much with hourly estimation or the daily meeting. Or the team can decide to go The Full Scrum, but use the process for a point release as opposed to a major ship date.
(2) Everyone hates the daily scrum.
In Scrum, the entire extended team, which includes development staff, management, and project stakeholders, meets every day for no more than 15 minutes (ideally). This is called the daily scrum. Each team member is supposed to discuss three things: what they worked on yesterday, what they plan to work on today, and whether they have encountered any blocking issues that will prevent them from completing their work items this sprint. It is the duty of the designated ScrumMaster for this sprint to facilitate the resolution of blocking issues.
In theory, the daily meeting is a wonderful idea, a regular check, in that brings all stakeholders together in a collaborative atmosphere. In practice, everyone hates it. In a corporate world chock full of meetings, the daily scrum is just one more meeting. And, for most team members, it is a boring and useless meeting. Unless you are significantly behind or have encountered blocking issues, the daily scrum feels like a waste of time.
In one of my teams, we have tried every which way but loose to restructure the daily scrum. Since our team was spread throughout the United States, we took to meeting through instant messaging, where everyone could paste their daily status into the chat window rather than read it out. Eventually, we abandoned the daily meeting altogether, and returned to our regular weekly team meeting. We continued to send out a regular burndown chart, however, that showed how quickly we were resolving work items, and whether we were on track to finish this sprint on time.
(3) Estimating task duration can be a nightmare for some projects.
Want to know how long a software development or technical documentation task will take: Easy: take your best guess, and double it! Schedule estimation is a black art that very few of us master. Hell, most of us would be happy to be mediocre at it. It does not help that, in the words of Rockwell, it always feels like somebody is watching us: if our estimates are incorrect, we are afraid that the Managerial Wrath of God will descend upon us.
Scrums stated goal is to empower developers to control their development schedule. Managers and the product owner can (and do!) still set drop-dead dates. But team members themselves assign time estimates to each task, and then work together with management and the product owner to determine which features can be completed in the allotted time. Planning is usually done as a team effort with a game called planning poker, in which team members repeatedly assign their best estimates to project tasks until the team reaches consensus.
This approach to planning does not work well for all types of projects, however. Maintenance projects and technical documentation projects in particular are usually composed of many small, discreet tasks that take far less than half a day to complete. For such projects, estimating at a finer level of granularity (less than four hours) is a nightmare.
Now, there is no getting around the need for estimation for planning projects and controlling costs. But for many teams, there is also no need to plan everything down to the man-hour. One of my documentation teams routinely dealt with a large number of bugs that were infinitesimally small; these bugs usually took less than 15 minutes to fix. After several frustrating months of assigning time quanta to these work items, we eventually settled on the concept of “t-shirt sizes,” rating bugs on a scale between XS (extra small) and XL (extra large), with each rating assigned an approximate time range (XS = under 15 minutes, S = 15 to 30 min. and so on). Over time, we developed a better sense of how much time each category of bugs consumed, and how many of each bug type we could resolve within a single publication milestone.
Remember that there is no ultimate authority dictating that your team must implement Scrum “by the book.” Like other agile methodologies, Scrum is nothing more than a collection of good ideas. Take what you think your team can use, and take it an idea at a time.
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Web Conferencing: Fast, Easy and Reliable Way of Connecting to People
Are you cringing by the thought of planning a conference? Making travel arrangements, organizing numerous agendas, trying to secure a location, and the expenses will surely make anyone dismayed in setting up a conference. However, there are easier ways to connect to other individuals.
You may think that this is just a hoax, but there is a way of conducting a meeting or conference which is also quickly becoming very popular because it is quite easy. Businesses of today, prefer web conferencing, why?
A simple reason as to why business like web conferencing is because it allow for a faster and easier way of communicating with business partners and employees. Those companies that outsourced or hired employees or have offices in other countries usually struggle to keep track of their employees and clients. For this reason, they started to use web conferencing.
Web conferencing can be conducted in two basic ways. By downloading web conferencing software into each of the participant’s computer and installing it is the first way. This is beneficial to participants because they will not have type a URL every time they want to log in or log out of the web conference.
But a disadvantage of doing this is that it takes a long time to install web conference software. Nevertheless, this method is very ideal for avoiding too much computer lags. Web video conferencing is among the advantages of using most of this software. Voice conference is also included in web conferencing software. It is also possible to use both video and voice conferencing using this software.
The second way of web conferencing is through web-based application. This means that you need to open your internet browser and go to the web site where your web conferencing will be held. The URL’s of web sites used for web conferencing are usually sent through email by the speaker or conductor of the conference.
This eliminates the need to install software into each of the participants’ computer or laptop. Therefore, this web conferencing option is a time saver. On the other hand, not all websites provide video and audio conference services. Due to this, it is very important for the conductor of the conference to be picky.
Web conferencing is a wonderful tool. With it, there is no need for you to find venues and you can conduct the conference without letting your participants travel. Web conferencing is also a very inexpensive way of communicating with far away business partners, friends, family members and employees.
A VPN can be a great way to get a personal connection. Jordan is a professional copywriter who can help you reduce risk by using web conferencing for business meetings. Find more articles for this and other related topics on the internet.
Lifelock Review 3 Reasons They Beat the Competition
This Lifelock review is designed to give you a straight answer to the question you really need answered before signing up for a service like Lifelock: what can they do for you? Any Lifelock review, or review for any similar company for that matter, can tell you all the basic services that you can expect to receive, but how do you choose between similar companies? You have to find the one that breaks the mold and offers more before you make that decision.
So, the following Lifelock review will overview three very clear points where Lifelock breaks the mold and offers more than their competitors can offer. These are the primary reasons consumers are turning to Lifelock to protect every part of their life and their future.
1. Million Dollar Guarantee
No matter what you hear from other companies which provide financial protection services, there is no guarantee in the industry that can beat the Lifelock million dollar guarantee. They are so confident in their ability to protect your financial information and credit that they will pay you up to a million dollars to cover the damages if someone ever does use your name illegally.
No Lifelock review would be complete without mentioning this warranty, as it is the primary reason Lifelock customers feel so secure and confident as they live their daily life.
2. Stop to Pre-Approved Credit Offers
The easiest way for someone else to use your name to obtain credit is to get a hold of one of those pre-approved offers that are always hitting your mailbox. What if one is delivered to your neighbors home instead of yours? What if someone simply checks your mail for you one day? Most realistically, what happens when you toss something like that in the trash can?
If you follow this Lifelock review and get protected by the most powerful service currently in operation, it wont matter! Lifelock double checks each and every application for credit that comes through in your name. This means you can stop the criminals from using your good name before they actually do it!
Other companies may help you clean up the mess after your identity has been used, but Lifelock prevents it from being used in the first place.
3. Year-Round Double Check
What would happen if someone applied for a credit card in your name today? If you are not protected with Lifelock, chances are high that they could walk away with the card, run it up past the maximum balance, and you wont find out about it until you get your next yearly credit report.
If you are protected by the services highlighted in this Lifelock review, it will be an entirely different story. Lifelock double checks each and every time someone tries to apply for credit in your name, verifying that it is really you on the other end of that transaction.
These are just three of the benefits of protecting your life with Lifelock. The services you would receive from their competitors are still offered here, but it is obvious you get much more in addition when you go with Lifelock.
Want more information on Lifelock. Please read our Lifelock Review.
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Security Issues On Social Network Websites
Social networking websites have become a household name in today`s world. Whether it is our personal or professional life, they are a truly great way connect with friends, colleagues and establishing new relationships online. Not long ago, we used to associate the term `social networking` with something which was personal and tangible. However, with the advent of the Internet, we have now become more eager to display our social networking capabilities on the web.
According to psychologists, the thrill of establishing new relationships over the Internet can be attributed to the expanding growth of social network websites. However, in the zeal to become `social`, we tend to ignore the many security issues hovering over such social network websites. Without a doubt, these social networks help us a lot in establishing contact with our friends, colleagues and relatives, but it is also true that we need to be aware of the endemic security issues in context of these social networking websites.
Before venturing into the steps that we can take, to save ourselves from being a prey to the security issues, we need to understand the real reason behind them. Every social networking website asks the user to fill up a registration form, mentioning therein all the required details. The broad divisions into which the details are segregated are social, professional and personal. The details carry your contact information, email id, your current profession and your personal likes and dislikes. There is a chance that the information you are supplying can be provocative to some and might land you into serious trouble.
This is just one of the many security issues prevalent over social networking websites. There is also a chance that the person whom you actually think to be your friend/colleague turns out to be an impostor. There is also a sect of people who get provoked by the kind of religious feelings/political views that you support. Remember that all these details are filled up by you and only you can protect yourself from the clutches of security issues over social networking websites.
Let us now take an overview of how you can protect yourself from being a victim to these security issues,
1. Never ever share your password with anyone, not even with the closest of your friend/family.
2. Just after you finish typing in your user name and password, remember to turn off the `remember me` button. This helps immensely in protecting your ID from any security issues present in these social network sites.
3. Make it a mandatory habit to always logout of the social network site after you have finished using it.
4. After filling up the required information in the registration form, never forget to edit the privacy settings of the same. If possible, it is always recommended to change the settings to `viewable only to my friends` rather than `viewable to everyone`. This way you can save your profile from being visible to everyone in public.
5. Never provide sensitive information while filling up these forms. What might seem as ordinary to you, can be provocative material to many.
6. In case, you find that your profile has been tampered with, immediately report the matter to the `report abuse/violations` sections.
These small steps can work wonders in providing you with the most solid protection against all possible security issues lurking in such social network websites. Social networking is fun but with a little care we can avoid our personal content/details from being a part of the public, as a whole. The phrase, `A stitch in time saves nine`, is quite apt in this context. If we try to be a little aware of the problems which might crop up because of our ignorance, we can save our profile from all kinds of security issues over social network websites.
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Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for Polomercantil