Three of the Atomic Learning PC Maintenance and Security workshop tutorials that I visited were: Protecting Your Family Online; Making Email Safer; and Tips for Safer Web Browsing. There were things that I learned from each of these that I will definitely be sharing with others, as well as some information that surprised me. By posting this information in my blog, I will be completing my performance tasks for the PC Maintenance and Security lab.
I chose the Protecting Your Family Online tutorial to become more knowledgeable about stuff I should aware of, since I have 11, 7, and 4 year olds at home that frequently use the 'family' older computer in their playroom. I will definitely be sharing information about setting up the Content Advisor in Internet Explorer. While I informally monitor what my kids are going on and am usually nearby when they are on the computer, there are times when I am away from the playroom area doing chores in another area of the house. I like how the content filter will allow me to filter out what my kids can see, and that I am enabled to approve certain content. I wasn't exactly surprised by the next thing that I am going to share, but it is a pointer that I am going to keep in mind as my 11 year old continues to progress towards the teenage years. IF YOUR CHILD HAS A 'CLEAR' HISTORY, with nothing on it, then chances are he or she is clearing their internet tracks and you should probably question why the history is being cleared.
Another tutorial that I completed was Making Email Safer. I will share with others information about Mailwasher, which is a free spam blocker. While there is an upgraded version that you can pay for, the basic free version is still a useful tool. I really like the thought of blocking spam emails and bouncing them back to the sender. I found the information about avoiding phising scams useful, and would naturally have been suspicious if 'Bank of America' (the example used) had sent me an email to confirm account and user information. But I might have been taken in by the 'eBay' second chance-respond now phising scam, since I never use eBay and if I did, might be caught by that one. So, the information about the eBay phising scam surprised me.
A third tutorial I visited was Tips for Safer Web Browsing. Information that I will share from this tutorial will include that there are 3 types of cookies. I kind of had an idea of what a cookie was, but didn't realize that there can be 3 different kinds: persistent cookies (such as amazon.com); session cookies; and tracking cookies (Beware! Tracking cookies are security risks, they report back to advertisers and should be disabled and blocked). You probably could say I was surprised by learning that you can use a thumbdrive to aide in web browsing.
Visiting the above mentioned tutorials were useful as well as the others on the Atomic Learning site. I definitely am a novice on the computer and feel that my mind is a sponge soaking up all kids of useful tidbits. Right now I am feeling slightly saturated, so I am going to sign off on this post.
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