• Personal Blog

    Memory

    Last year I began writing about my early childhood after my daughter gave me “Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story” by Jeffrey Mason. The book is presented as a series of fill-in-the-blank questions like “In what city were you born?” and “Were you born in a hospital?”.  After starting to write recollections down it became obvious that the answers did not fit into a sequential story.  Equally clear is how difficult it is for me to remember details about early childhood.  Imagine going through an old family photo album you have not seen in some time. On each page you see snapshots of parents, siblings, or other relatives. You…

  • Personal Blog,  Published Works

    Wi-Fi availability spreads, but just how safe is it?

    While I am in job hunting mode, I find myself taking breaks from reading through the many verbose job postings on Indeed, Zip Recruiter, Monster, etc. to do a little file housekeeping. I found this OP-ED piece I wrote for the weekly newspaper, Inside Business*.  Although it was written some years back, I found that it still stands up in terms of technology in the office.   Even the hacking software mentioned is still available. Without researching it I would bet a steak dinner that far more advanced hacking software programs are also widely available and free.  Here is a cautionary tale for your workplace from 2005. Enjoy and comment.…

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  • Personal Blog

    Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

    After planning a few posts ahead, I stopped cold when I learned about Microsoft Mesh. You know that scene in the Original Star Wars movie where Luke Skywalker is cleaning R2-D2 and accidentally starts the hologram of Princess Leia saying “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”? That is Microsoft Mesh. Well, not quite that advanced but it will remind you of movie special effects immediately. The technology is called Mixed Reality (MR) and combines real and digital objects. Unlike Virtual Reality (VR) goggles where all you can see are projected images, MR headsets allow you to also see through the projected image to your own immediate surroundings. Microsoft…

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  • Personal Blog

    Hashtag #hashtag #MoreViews #itIsBetter

    I wanted to share with you an observation about using hashtags on LinkedIn. Previously I posted what I thought was useful information on testing the passwords saved automatically in your browser.  Even with almost 4000 connections, only 14 people viewed the article. About a week later I posted an update with some new information. Thinking I would increase readership by including relevant hashtags I posted the update with #passwords #internetsecurity. 10 Views.  What the hell? Next, I found which hashtags were being used on LinkedIn.  After a Google search, I found several sites which claim to offer the “most popular” hashtags. Although a few of them looked like they were probably…

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  • Personal Blog

    Critical Security Answers

    I have a bit of an update for you to my previous post, Critical Security Issues Found. After changing many of the compromised and reused passwords I checked a different source, Firefox Monitor (https://monitor.firefox.com/breaches). It revealed a new breach at Pluto TV. I do not even watch Pluto TV – signing up only to check it out some time ago! After all the work I did and the sheer number of sites and passwords both personal and professional I decided to use a password manager – software which remembers all your passwords thus allowing you to use stronger passwords without memorizing them or storing them all in a note on…

  • Personal Blog

    Critical Security Issues Found

    What!!?? I did a routine check on my personal Google account and found a somewhat alarming warning. The alert said, “Critical security issues found”. Underneath that text was a link marked “Take Action”.  Clicking that button brought me to the Password Checkup section of my Google Account. Up until then I was not overly worried. Then I read that Google had found 103 compromised passwords, 570 reused passwords (which is usually not a good idea) and 516 accounts using a weak password. A few of the compromised passwords were found in a data breach uncovered just a few days ago, while others date back several months. Some of the compromised…

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  • Personal Blog

    Email marketing

    I discovered sending generic campaigns to large numbers of contacts can cloud results. I looked at 2019 results and seeing an open rate of 19% seemed excellent on the surface. According to Constant Contact it is 11% higher than the industry average. Without thinking it through it looks like a fabulous result. Looking at it from a different angle the unopened rate is 81%. Who are these people? Using the Segment tool in Constant Contact I was able to identify the 12,705 contacts who were sent an email in 2019. Of course, most of these contacts were sent more than one email. How many people opened none of those emails…

  • Personal Blog

    On Brand

    Today the focus is on Brand and the work it takes to keep up with it.  While there are a lot of definitions of the word “brand” I usually think of it as what your stakeholders /customers / prospects perceive you to be. That could be anything from a great employer to some unknown warehouse where they sell wire. I usually make the effort to search my brand (personal and professional) a few times a year. This could take a little while if you include Google, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other Professional social media. I found that several former Norfolk Wire & Electronics employee reviews were good, and a couple were…

  • Personal Blog

    Wow – I thought I knew better.

    So, I went on LinkedIn today and decided to check my messages. My birthday is in December, and here it is the end of January. I have unanswered birthday wishes.  I have been on LinkedIn for years and have 3,729 Connections as of this afternoon… so I figured there would be a few… but there were dozens and dozens of them. Shame on me for not even a quick thank you! As I was responding I found a few people who wished me Happy Birthday in 2018, which went unanswered and another birthday greeting in 2019. Then I found the filter for unread messages. Dozens and dozens more… “Congrats on…