Holiday Greeting From WebBytesBlog

May you have a very wonderful time this holiday as you get together with family and good friends. Remember the reason for the holiday and spend some quality time with your love ones. Enjoy!
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2012 Worst Passwords

A few years ago, I wrote two posts on secure passwords (see links at the end of this post).  Thursday, October 25, 2012 CNN's Olivia B. Waxman published an article on the worst passwords, "The 25 Worst Passwords of 2012" to be exact. I know Web Bytes readers are extremely tech savvy and won't fall into this pattern, so here is the list for you to share with friends and family:

1. password

2, 123456

3. 12345678

4. abc123

5. qwerty

6. monkey

7. letmein

8. dragon

9. 111111

10. baseball

11. iloveyou

12. trustno1

13. 1234567

14. sunshine

15. master

16. 123123

17. welcome

18. shadow

19. ashley

20. football

21. jesus

22. michael

23. ninja

24. mustang

25. password1

You can read Olivia's article in its entirety on the CNN website at the link above. I Hope this post in conjunction with my previous posts on passwords will help you to create passwords that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess. As mentioned above, the following links are from Web Bytes published in 2009.

Passwords Revisited

Secure Passwords

As always, please email me with topics you are interested in knowing more about and let’s have a good time learning together!

In His service,

AvaByGrace  

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Happy Birthday Web bytes!

This is the fifth birthday for Web Bytes. I have not been very productive in blogging, here or at Technorati, this year because of school. Hopefully this would change soon on both sites and I can get back on track writing on new and exciting technologies.

Thanks again to all who follow both blogs and I hope you continue. As always, please let me know if there is a particular topic, application and/or device you are interested in knowing more about.

In His service,
AvaByGrace
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Google Science Fair 2012 - Update

Reopen ~ Submissions are being accepted between Thursday, April 5, 2012 and Friday 11:59 PM GMT and April 6, 2012 11:59 PM GMT so if you had trouble submitting your project, here is another opportunity to do so.  For those who have successfully submitted theirs, here is a chance to make adjustments if necessary. Get started by visiting https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en_US/login.


In His service,
AvaByGrace
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Kindle Reading App and Kindle Cloud Reader

Amazon has the Kindle Reading App for your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry (Beta edition), and Android phones  that allows you to:

• Read Kindle books
• Access your Kindle books without your Kindle
• If you have a Kindle, it synchronizes your last page read and annotates between devices. Your highlights, notes and bookmarks are also synchronized
• Search within the book you are reading
• Use the built-in dictionary

The Kindle Cloud Reader allows you to read Kindle books directly from your browser; no Kindle device required. You can even continue reading if you lose your Internet connection. FireFox, Chrome and Safari are the current browsers that support the Kindle Cloud Reader; however, support for other browsers will be available shortly.

Amazon has a generous supply of free Kindle books as well as ones to buy that can be downloaded or viewed on the above mentioned devices. Every day there is a list of Top 100 Free Kindle books available for download. All that is needed to take advantage of these reading resources is an Amazon account. 

In His service,

AvaByGrace

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Scareware

Scareware is malware which is software that is design to specifically damage your computer connected to the Internet. As the name implies, it is a pop-up that scares, tricks and yes, makes you panic as it is disguised to look like a legitimate warning from a security software company. This pop-up that makes you panic is usually a warning that your computer is at risk i.e. infected by a virus, scaring you into making a purchase of fake security software from scammers.

The only things wrong with clicking to make this purchase is that you have given these criminals sensitive personal information so they could now make exuberant purchases and/or possibly sell your information to others (identity theft). Additionally, you are given a false sense of security pertaining to your computer because if it was not at risk before, it certainly would be at this point.

Use common sense while using the Internet and not be intimidated into using sites and/or products you are not familiar with or did not previously purchase the products. Stay clear of pop-up windows intimidating or enticing you into purchasing products; close out the pop-up window and continue with your task.

More detailed readings on malware were posted under the October 2008 post titled “Phishing” and Feb 2009 post, titled “In-session Phishing”.  Remember to diligently check for reviews from reputable sites on the security products you intend to purchase and also consider the company you are purchasing it from.

In His service,
AvaByGrace
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Google Science Fair 2012

For those of you how have children or know someone who has children between the ages of 13 to 18 interested in getting answers, check out the two videos below on Google Science Fair 2012 (the world's largest online science competition) which has an entry deadline of 1 April 2012. The first video is a brief introduction to the fair and the second one shows how to enter the competition.

Intro:

 

How to enter:

To find our more information on prizes and judging criteria, visit google.com/sciencefair

Have fun learning and exploring!
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Tidbit - Tablet Media

I read today that tablets, including Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, were purchased this holiday mainly by women in their forties according to the statistics from Maritz Research.  I stated this simply because it reminded me to give you some information on these tablets. I received a Kindle Fire for Christmas which prompted me to search for free resources for this particular tablet. One of the most wonderful things I found was the public library’s downloadable media resources where there is a vast array of books (both printed and audio), magazines, music and videos you can borrow with the use of your library card; isn’t this neat? If you don’t have a library card, now is the time to get one, which can also be applied for online.  If you don’t have a tablet, that’s okay because you can download this media for your PC, Mac and handheld devices such as BlackBerry and Android phones.  For certain media (check digital rights) you can even make CDs for on- the- go usage if you do not have WiFi capability. This amazing fact along with the ability to borrow from owners in the Kindle community make the Kindle Fire more desirable than ever for me…thanks gift giver!

What are your thoughts on this and other suggestions for free downloadable media resources?

In His service,
AvaByGrace

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