Midterm Collaborative Project

For this week's blog post I decided to do a review of the Midterm Collaboration Project. For the project, my professor placed the class into groups. Each group was responsible for creating a business, a business logo, a business letter, flyer, and presentation. My group split up the responsibilities by each of us focusing on one major part of the project: mine being the presentation. This project required us to utilize Google Drive. Not only does Google have its own document and presentation program, but it allows groups to collaborate with one another easily. Google enabled us to share each portion of the project within the group as well as with the professor for grading. I also learned how to download additional programs into Google Docs, such as MindMeister, I found this project very beneficial. Not only did it allow me to become acquainted with new people in my class, but it allowed me to learn more about Google's processing programs. Though I have used Google Drive from time to time, I had never before used it to work on a group project or to share documents. This assignment showed me just how beneficial this program is! Because of this project, I will definitely utilize Google for future collaborative assignments.

USB Hackers Response

For this week's blog post, I read the article, Critical USB hack goes public; how bad is the risk? by Matt Picht of the Atlantic Journal-Constitution. The article outlined and explained the recent threat of USB hackers and the issues that they are introducing. Prior to reading the article, I had never heard of or could even imagine a hacking technology like this. I find this extremely alarming and I am concerned for the future of cyber security. I think now more than ever that it is critical to be careful of what we store in our computers, phones, tablets, other devices. According to the article, a pair of hacking researches publicly published the work describing how they developed the malware. Though I can see why the researchers thought this would be beneficial, I think that overall this could cause more issues. Unfortunately, I feel that people will take advantage of their work and use what they have found to further develop the malware, rather than find a solution. I think that other hackers may also use their research to develop technology to attack users from a completely different angle. Something that really stuck out to me in this article was when it noted that this threat could bring "years of insecurity". This article not only shocked and surprised me, but it showed me just how important it is for all internet users to stay up-to-date with recent news in technology.

Picht, Matt. "Critical USB hack goes public; how bad is the risk?." AJC.com: Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News. Atlantic Journal-Constitution, 4 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national/critical-usb-hack-goes-public-how-bad-risk/nhcHM/>.

PowerPoint Module Reflection

Without a doubt, this week has been my favorite week of CSIT thus far. I have enjoyed both the readings and discussions - PowerPoints and presentations are one of my strong suits when it comes to learning with technology! That being said, I was very fond of this week's assignment. Not only was I able to work with something I like, but I was able to learn more about the PowerPoint 2010 program. Whenever I have done a PowerPoint in the past, it has always been for a class presentation, and not very many specifications were required. Prior to this week, I had no idea that if could insert a footer or even change the PowerPoint designs from page to page. These are skills that will certainly prove useful to me while completing other assignments, and even later in in life. I'm addition to learning more about the PowerPoint program, I was also able to show my Professor (and possibly even my classmates) a little more about myself. Though there were some technical specifications required for the assignment, my professor basically left the rest up to me. I felt that I was able to show her a little bit of my personality while also displaying some of my skills. Overall, I enjoyed this project because I love being creative and having freedom while completing assignments!