So, exactly, what does being a Systems Analyst mean? Do you, to paraphrase the words of a well-known comedian, “walk around, going mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yes, you are a system?”
Not exactly. In fact, not at all.
Webster’s online dictionary defines system analysis as:
the act, process, or profession of studying an activity (as a procedure, a business, or a physiological function) typically by mathematical means in order to define its goals or purposes and to discover operations and procedures for accomplishing them most efficiently
Being a Systems Analyst requires a variety of skills, and the vast majority are not technical skills, but people skills. A Systems Analyst must be able to communicate effectively; manage often disparate groups of clients, developers, users, operators, technical writers, etc.; lead a project through to completion through a jungle of situations; and do it all with tact, diplomacy, and a firm hand – velvet glove not required, but probably a good idea.
In other words, bring your dancing shoes, Jack – you’re gonna need them. [click to continue…]
It has often been said that the best defense is a good offense and that is especially true when it comes to Penetration Testing.
Penetration Testing, or Pen Testing, is a commonly used process designed to assess a network’s security by the simulation of an internal or external attack via analysis of possible vulnerabilities.
The testing areas of Penetration Testing generally are:
- Network· Applications
- Host
- Logical
- Physical
- Policy
- Work Flow
- Response
Bi-annual Penetration Testing is recommended by most experts for keeping networks safe. Ironically, most pen testers do that by actually hacking a customer’s network to find the issues that may very well allow attacks in the future. This process has given rise to the terminology ethical hacking. By using ethical hacking, pen testers have the ability to asses any system’s vulnerability and devise a suitable solution for the network owner. Implementation of that solution along with Bi-annual Penetration Testing can safeguard the network against attacks. [click to continue…]
by CBO on December 6, 2012
Flash Memory, the type used in your USB thumb drives, your cellphone, solid state drives, and other storage devices; can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. In other words, you can put data on your device, then delete it, then put something else on it.
Usually, this can be done about 10,000 times before the memory is worn out. Most of us will lose our thumb drives long before that happens.
But when it comes to more critical operations, like a server, it’s a bigger deal. But now, engineers from Macronix, the largest worldwide manufacturer of ROM products, have come up with a way to make memory last for 100 million cycles, and maybe even more. This could be great news for our storage devices. Read the full story here:
Flash Memory Survives 100 Million Cycles - IEEE SpectrumIn the world of memory chips, flash is king. But it’s not perfect. It wears out after being programmed and erased about 10 000 times...This month, at the 2012 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, engineers from Macronix plan to report the invention of a self-healing NAND flash memory that survives more than 100 million cycles
Of course, this is over-simplifying, but the advance is done using heat. Small bursts of up to, and possibly over, 800 degrees. No word on what it may cost, but they do say it won’t drain your cell phone battery.
by CBO on December 3, 2012
At a certain age, everyone will understand this poor guy…
I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific, Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world. [click to continue…]
First, let me tell you how to break your laptop screen.
1. Set your mouse down on the keyboard, and gently close the top until it’s just barely touching the mouse.
2. Now stand up and stretch over the laptop to plug in a USB cable, and lean heavily on the laptop, pressing the screen firmly into the mouse.
And that’s all there is to it! You thought there was more? See, it is very simple to do.
Replacing the screen is not quite as simple, but it’s not too difficult.
By following these two videos, I managed to get ‘er done.
The first video is is a rather generic screen replacement, and will give most people the guidance they need. The second video was more specific to my laptop – A Gateway NV59 with a rockin’ i5 processor! It has a few idiosyncrasies that the generic video didn’t cover. [click to continue…]
by Tcat Houser on April 17, 2012
Barring an electronic Armageddon, the impact of Social Media will reverberate in education as deeply as it has on Madison Avenue. As of 2012, neither industry has come to grasp with the depth of the disruption or the new challenges and opportunities that await both industries.
The many forms of education can draw many parallels to advertising because advertising is simply a form of selective education. Prior to the era of instant inexpensive electronic media, both education and advertising were accomplished in one of three forms:
- One-to-Many – Books, Billboards, Film/Video and Journals/Magazines
- Many-to-One – Classroom, Demonstration, Lecture Hall
- One-to-One – Tutoring, Sales Presentations
The mantra for Bill Gates’ Information at Your Fingertips was a concept existing from the first generation: character-based Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). The unintended consequence of Mr. Gates’ vision was that the humans of the planet were transformed from having a lack of information to information overload.
In effect, the information age has become its own undoing. [click to continue…]
