My
article is about the helpful information that I received
while attending the sessions at the technology Fall conference
that were presented by Mr. Patrick Crispen. His expertise
about home computer security and how to prevent and fix problems
that could be a threat to anyone who surfs the Internet was
both helpful and easy to understand. He made what could have
been a boring and uninteresting subject enjoyable. Mr. Crispen
has a sense of humor and a nice ablility to make his audience
feel comfortable. If something was unclear, everyone felt at
ease to just ask. As a media specialist, I could see how I
might pass this useful information along to others and maybe
even prevent future viruses and unnecessary attacks on my faculty,
students, parents, friends, and other staff members’s
computers. In my opinion, the world of computers could be a
better and safer place if we all would pass this useful information
from Mr. Crispen’s world of information about viruses,
worms, and Trojan horses, and all the other techno threats
that our PCs can get, to all of our friends who use computers.
(The article
is Instructional, but the one who inspired me to write
about his session was technical and instructional.)
If you ever
wondered just how unsafe you might be while traveling along
the information highway, perhaps you might consider reading
what Mr. Patrick Crispen has to say about the world of computers
and how to stay safe while using them! Mr. Crispen is an academic
technology consultant at the faculty development center at
the California State University, Fullerton. He has been invited
to speak at many technology conferences around the country
and is well known for one of the Internet’s top fifteen
newsletters. His famous newsletter is called, Internet Tourbus.
It is free and published semi-weekly and is read by over 100,000
people in over 130 countries. Why am I telling you all this?
I like
to help others be safe and well informed about using computers,
especially their personal computers. If you are willing
to go to Mr. Crispen’s website: http://netsquirrel.com
, you will soon discover that all of the information you
need to know about bugs, and crackers and worms and a whole
lot more will be well worth the view. All of the gathering
and printing that you can find time to do, will also be time
well spent. Once you get to the netsquirrel site, http://netsquirrel.com,
you will need to scroll down to the words, “classroom
resources”.
There you can see for yourself a special PowerPoint, created
just for you called, “Home Security Computer Privacy”.
There are a lot more goodies located to read at this site,
too. Be sure to see part one and then part two when you
checkout the information about computer security. When
I went to the conference in Atlanta this past November,
I accidentally came in on the PowerPoint part two of the
Home Security Computer Privacy session before hearing about
the part one. Part one is called, “Home
Security Computer Privacy: Firewalls and Exploit Management”.
Part two is called, “Home Security Computer Privacy:
Verification and Prevention”. No wonder I was just
a little confused! I felt like I had missed something.
I did! It was Part I.
I later
went to both sessions again. Mr. Crispen’s sense of humor
and great presentation was done so very well that I was
really ready and excited to come back the next day to get
the two parts together so that I could actually go home
and work on making my computer system a better place. He
recapped part one while explaining part two and this really
helped me. I wanted to be able to travel on the information
highway without any fear of the spies and spy ware and
all those worms and crackers that he was talking about.
I wanted to be able to travel at top speed, too, with no
interruptions along the way. He told how to get rid of
those pop up ads and other attacks that slows performance
down. While all of this helpful information was good for
just me, I wanted to share this with my media specialists
friends and with the teachers at my school. It was especially
helpful to know that the website would be available with
all of the necessary information concerning home security
computer privacy. In fact, all of his presentations can
be downloaded from his site. I enjoyed hearing Mr. Crispen’s
presentation and found it helpful to be in an environment
that allowed for questions from the audience to be answered
with live action coverage on the big screen. Many people
came back to his sessions with questions about the “how
to’s” after making an attempt to practice what
he shared with us. I found his feedback to be encouraging
and helpful for all of us who would go home and try to
get the necessary software downloaded for the firewalls.
That’s why I like
to go to the conferences to actually see and hear the speakers.
They mention a few personal items about free information
that you might miss otherwise.
For example,
I learned that the free software to download is available
at http://www.zonelabs.com.
I also learned that I needed to get the latest Norton
Virus software and that I am to never rely on my ISP
to provide me with the protective software that I need.
It is my responsibility to play it safe while traveling
on the information highway and to use my computer wisely,
protecting it from unwanted attackers. My computer
can be a useful piece of equipment and can quickly get me
to places where no bugs or crackers or worms are waiting
to attack if I use the information that I have gained
wisely. Thanks to this wonderful presentation at the
Georgia Technology Conference, I was able to enjoy
several sessions presented by Mr. Patrick Crispen. Now I
am more aware of attacks on my computer that can be from
bugs and crackers and worms, oh, my! You can reach me in
the A.Z. Kelsey Media Center in Griffin, GA from our school’s
website, http://www.spalding.k12.ga.us/kelsey/default.htm,
or by my email.
