Saturday, January 31, 2015

Online Learning For The Self Taught

To begin with, I am a self taught person.  I spend most of my downtime trying to learn or read about something new.  I am always of the mind that I don't know everything and that there is always something that I could be learning.  If you ask my wife, she will tell you that whenever I go someplace, I typically have a book with me, or have my nose in a website trying to learn something.  You should never, ever stop learning.  It keeps your brain young and you on the cutting edge (if that is where you yearn to be).  For my field (I am a Systems Engineer), there are so many changes every day, you can never truly keep up.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not slamming or advising against a formal education.  If you have the opportunity afforded to you to go to college, by all means, go.  You will not regret it and it will benefit you in the long run.  There are some organizations where they require a college degree or they won't even look at you as a candidate (yes, I have run into these).  But, if you are like me and you either don't have the chance, or were not able to finish college, then you will need to seek your knowledge elsewhere, and today that is the online world. 

Online learning takes many shapes.  You can find tutorials on a large number of sites, usually blogs, that will guide you step by step through a particular task or in learning a programming language.  Then there is a slightly older technology called a CBT (Computer Based Training).  You won't run into this much online, but you may find it at large companies that have an internal training department.  You sign up and take courses from their internal learning website.  Its one way, they feed you the information and you write it down.  There may even be a quiz or two. 

Then we get to one of the latest things, the MOOC(Massive Open Online Course) or also referred to as Open Courseware.  This is a system that has now been employed by universities and websites alike, allowing people to take their courses either for free, or for a fee.  Some of these even offer a certificate as proof of passing the course.  

You will find that there are many universities that you have heard of that have MOOC available to the public, but also some you may not have.  A couple of names that stand out are MIT, Stanford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Duke, and the list goes on.   You may find that while the colleges have a page on their site to inform you about their open courseware, their site actually links to something like Coursera, or EDX.

When I first started looking for online resources to learn from, I came across some of the typical "Hey, come here and take our course on ", only to find out that it was either misleading and only gave a very small, a lot to be desired intro, or they got you to a point and they hit you up for money to continue the course.  That really burned when I ran into that.  There are still those today, believe it or not.   I am big into Data Science, and discovered a site called dataquest.io.  I started off with the first lesson or two, but was soon prompted to sign up for their premium service if I wanted to continue.  I was disappointed as there was some aspects of the site that I was interested in, but I just don't have extra funds to pump into something like that at the moment.  I have to keep things on the cheap.  So if you are interested in something like that and have the funds, but all means, check it out.  
So in my further quest, I decided to try and find if anyone had compiled a degree curriculum or syllabus, listing the courses needed to fulfill that degree, with links to said courses.  It took me a bit of searching, but I finally found a couple of links to what I was looking for.  

The first one I found was that of a Bachelor's level curriculum in Computer Science.  This was great, exactly what I was looking for.  What was better, was that that page was already updated to include a link to their Intensive Bachelor's level curriculum in Computer Science.  This was fantastic.  I looked through both lists and was amazed to find such a complete curriculum list, compiled and with links.  

While I was blown away by what I had found, I wanted more.  I still have an interest in Data Science.  There has to be something out there to satisfy that need, and there was.  I bring you, the curriculum for the Open Source Masters in Data Science.  This filled a void, and a big one.  This had an awesome set of courses and links to books as well.  

As you can see, I was able to find 3 different resource that provided me a full curriculum, with links to courses.  All that's left now is to take the courses.  Ah, to have that much time available.  If you do, that's awesome, have at it.  I, unfortunately, only have so much time, but I do my best.

In all of my perusing of the internet learning resources, I have come across a few and made some notes on them.  I provide those for you below, with some of my comments on each.  

Online Learning Sites

- All free
- Beginner learning tracks
- git (source control), web dev, iOS, misc electives, ruby, javascript
- Also has screencasts giving overview or tutorial on specific topics  (ie:  they have a 4 part screen cast on docker)

- Computer related
- courses are free to take
 - You can get a certificate for some courses, but that costs money

- A large number of courses in a bunch of different categories
- free
- all link to free courses at schools that have the courses online

- Tons of courses
- Free
- Not always current teachings, but within a few years.  Material still quite valid.

- large array of courses
- math
- languages
- computer science
- web development
- all free

- tons of courses
- all free
- great for kids

- 10K free, online courses

- Lots of topics
- Degree related studies
- Free

- Lots of topics
- Free

- Lots of courses
- Free
- Large array of topics

- Free
- All technology based

- Costs $$
- Technology based

- Free
- Each topic shows places on the web to learn

- Laern to code
- Free
- A few different tracks

- College
- Free online courses

- Free
- Online Educational courses in a variety of topics

- Course software offered by from multiple online sources

- DevOps approach
- Free

- Learn data science in your browser
- Misleading initially.  You can only take a few 'missions' for free, but then are required to pay a subscription of $35 or more a month to continue.

- Online curriculum
- Lists where to take courses
- Lists resources for online learning
- Also lists book price, if available



Well, that is the list which I have compiled thus far.  Its not complete by any stretch, but instead is meant more as a taste of what you can find via your favorite search engine.  There are so very many sites that you can find, hopefully you will find the courses that are right for you and further your knowledge.  

So go forth, and learn ( and have fun doing it ).  Master your craft and be the best that you can be.

Not to be all cheezy, but I leave you with a quote from the movie "Drumline":

"And if you don't have the honor and discipline to learn you craft... then quite frankly Devon, you don't deserve to be here."   - Dr. Lee to Devon Miles

















Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Passwords.... Passwords Everywhere

The online world has grown so incredibly much over the past 20 years that its mind boggling.  I remember when all I had to remember was several passwords.   Of course back then there were BBS's still in existence and the internet was an amazing playground just waiting to be explored and getting bigger every day.

Today the number of passwords that you need to remember is astronomical.  Because of that, password security is something that people get extremely lax on.   You hear jokes about people using 'password' as their password, or things like '123456', 'secret', or some other easy to remember word, phrase or date.  In fact, they do an annual survey of the worst passwords of that year.  I hate to say it, but its ignorance of password security that causes people accounts to so easily get hacked.  Now and again I get an email from a friend with a link in it, or directing me to "check this out".  Its usually something out of character for that person. I am extremely skeptical and security minded, so I tend to be wary of things.  I will inform the person and usually they confirm that their account was accessed illegally and that they just changed their password.

One of the biggest complaints I hear is "Sure I can create harder passwords, but how will I remember them?".    I can completely sympathize with that thought, but these days there are applications to assist you with that.  There are password managers that you can use to store your passwords in so you don't have to remember all of them.  You just need to ensure the password to use that application is secure and that you remember it.  And that is what I would like to talk about in this post, because there are far to many easily brute forced passwords out there.  All a person would need is a really detailed set of dictionary files to work off of and they could successfully get into one or more accounts in a system.

There are generally two types of applications:  desktop and browser based.  The application that you choose is up to you, but I recommend trying a couple out and finding one you like and sticking with it.

One of the more popular applications is LastPass.  LastPass runs as an extension to your browser and is available for all 3 major OS's (Linux, Windows and Mac) and all browser (Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and *cough* *cough* IE).  I use LastPass (almost) exclusively and love it!  As you surf to a new site and log in (or create a login), LastPass will offer to create an entry for the site in its database (if it doesn't already have it).  If there is an entry, it compares it to see if it has changed (and offers to update the entry if it has).   LastPass is quite handy and because of it I have the option in my browser to save passwords, turned off.  Of course that is something you shouldn't do anyway.   One really handy option in LastPass (and other softwares as well) is the option to generate secure passwords.  LastPass will generate them and if you click the button to accept it, it will populate it into the form field(s) and then save a generic entry for that site.  So handy!  Oh, and LastPass is FREE!

If you are on a Mac, 1Password is comparable to LastPass.  The only difference is that 1Password costs about $35,  but it is well worth the money.  It has a browser extension just like LastPass, but also has the added nicety of also being its own application on the Mac.  This allows you to store more than just website passwords.  May be you have some company secrets you don't want getting out, or a list of combinations to you safes (mind you I am being totally hypothetical here).  Either way, you have options.

Moving on, another popular application is KeePass.   This application is a standalone application by default, but does have plugins that you can install to give it more functionality, such as browser integration.

One thing that all of these applications have in common though, is that the data itself is encrypted.  That way nobody can just access your stored information without proper access.  For all of these applications you need to supply a password to use them (which you setup after you initially install them.  Some application (like KeePass) have the added benefit of allowing you to specify a key (ssh key for example) for added security.  This key would need to be present and the correct password also entered, providing a form of 2-factor authentication.  This is nice because the key would not have to reside on the machine  You could store the key and database file(s) on a thumb drive (for instance), and keep them with you at all time.

Another option for keeping things a bit more available is if you have a DropBox account, or a similar service, you could store your databases in your dropbox account and access them when you need to.  DropBox's site claims that your data, no matter what you store, is stored with AES256 bit encryption.  Even though the database files that go along with the KeePass application are already encrypted, the extra encryption certainly doesn't hurt.

All-in-all, my recommendation is to try something out and see if you like it.  If not, move on to the next one.  Examine the features and see what is important to you from a security standpoint.  I personally use a combination of LastPass for my internet, 1Password on my work laptop (company provided) and KeePass on my home laptop.

Feel free to Google search password managers and explore what is out there.  It is always better to be safe than sorry.   Password security is no joke.  What's nice is that these applications make the task of having harder, more difficult to crack passwords a bit more palatable.  Especially when they are doing the storing / remembering of logins.  

OSx 10.10.1 Annoyances

If you have had a Mac for any length of time, you are probably used to upgrading to the latest version of the OS when they release it.   Of course within the past couple of years we have all learned that we even have to be wary of Apple and its releases, as they have not been perfect by any stretch.  

My work is holding off on the latest release due to incompatibilities with some pieces of software.  This didn't stop me though, and this was because:  1. I had already upgraded, and 2. Luckily it turns out I didn't use the software in question.  Yay!

But, I have noticed that there are a couple of things in the new release that I find particularly annoying, especially since the modified behavior that I had either previously set specifically, or that was already a default action(and I preferred).

The first one is the setting in System Preferences for automatic display brightness adjustment.  I find this setting annoying as I don't like my computer deciding how bright my screen is supposed to be.  Also, having the screen brighter certainly drains a bit more of the battery.  My eyes are adjusted to having it set lower, and I like it that way.  Plus, when you have a headache(or migraine as I tend to get), the last thing you want is a brighter screen.  

With the 10.10.1 release, the update turned on automatic brightness adjustment.  It took me about an hour to actually notice it.   But if you want it off (like me), go to System Preferences -> Displays and uncheck the box next to "Automatically adjust brightness".  

The other setting that really irked me was that after updating to 10.10.1, I noticed that the default behavior of the machine when you close the lid had changed.  For the longest time the action was to put the computer to sleep when you shut the lid.  After updating, the default action was to hibernate.  As people have probably experienced, hibernate is a royal pain, mostly because when you open your laptop, you have to press the power button and then wait for it to restore.  On a Mac, when you sleep it, you simply open the top and the display comes alive almost right away (within a couple of seconds typically) and you can then log in and get right to work.  Pretty much almost no waiting.  Hibernate is a sloth to come back in comparison to sleep.  

I had to do a little digging to figure out how to fix this.  What you need to is open up your command line terminal and enter the following to make sleep the default when the lid is closed:

  sudo pmset -a lidwake 1

After that, if you shut the lid, it should simply sleep.  Now, some people are probably saying, "Why not just specifically tell it to sleep?".  The reason is to save time.  Instead of taking the time to go to the menus and click sleep, you can simply shut the top of your laptop and have it automatically do it for you.  

Again, these are my annoyances with OSx 10.10.1.  If you are not bothered by them, then continue on.  Otherwise, I hope this helped to fix them for you.
 
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