TechyNista

4 Useful Tips For a Successful Certification Exam.

2014-02-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

There are plenty of articles out there about how to prepare for a computer certification exam. However, there are also things you can do to increase your chances of success on exam day during the most important part of the entire process -- the time that you're actually taking the test. I've taken many certification exam over the years, and helped many others prep for theirs. Here are the five things you must do on exam day to maximize your efforts.

1. Show up on time. Yeah, I know everyone says that. The testing center wants you there 30 minutes early. So why do so many candidates show up late, or in a rush? If you have a morning exam appointment, take the traffic into account. If it's a part of town you don't normally drive in during rush hour, you might be surprised at how much traffic you have to go through. Plan ahead.

2. Use the headphones. Most candidates in the room with you understand that they should be quiet. Sadly, not all of them do. Smacking gum, mumbling to themselves (loud enough for you to hear, though), and other little noises can really get on your nerves in what is already a pressure situation. In one particular testing center I use, the door to the testing room has one setting: "Slam". Luckily, that center also has a headset hanging at every testing station. Call ahead to see if yours does. Some centers have them but don't leave them at the testing stations. Wearing headphones during the exam is a great way to increase your powers of concentration. They allow you to block out all noise and annoyances, and do what you came to do -- pass the exam.

3. Prepare for the "WHAT??" question. No matter how well-prepared you are, there's going to be one question on any exam that just stuns you. It might be off-topic, in your opinion. It may be a question that would take 20 of your remaining 25 minutes to answer. It might be a question that you don't even know how to begin answering. Whatever the reason, it's the question that has you thinking, "WHAT??" I have talked with candidates who got to such a question and were obviously so thrown off that they didn't do well on any of the remaining questions, either. There is only one thing to do in this situation: shrug it off. Compare yourself to a major-league pitcher. If he gives up a home run, he can't dwell on it. He's got to face another batter. Cornerbacks in football face the same problem. If they give up a long TD pass, they can't spend the next 20 minutes thinking about it. They have to shrug it off and be ready for the next play. Don't worry about getting a perfect score on the exam. Your concern is passing. If you get a question that seems ridiculous, unsolvable, or out of place, forget about it. It's done. Move on to the next question and nail it.

4. Finish with a flourish. Ten questions from the end of your exam, take a 15-to-30 second break. You can't walk around the testing room, but you can stand and stretch. By this point in the exam, candidates tend to be a little mentally tired. Maybe you're still thinking about the "WHAT??" question. Don't worry about the questions you've already answered -- they're done. Take a deep breath, remember why you're there -- to pass this exam -- and sit back down and nail the last ten questions to the wall. Before you know it, your passing score appears on the screen!

Three Benefits Of Web Analytics

2013-04-21T01:01:00.002-07:00

Web analytics is the process of measuring site statistics and analyzing traffic behavior. Here are there of the main benefits of web analytics.

It is typical for any business to do some data analysis. Data analysis is used to determine sales, profit, loss rate, and market interest. However, in terms of establishing a strong e-presence for your website, there is one tool that you could used in order to collect necessary data that you would need to promote your site.

Web analytics has been gaining steady popularity among websites, blogs and portals. It is used to analyze market trends and to identify website users or visitors. It is also used to determine the behavior of website users. It is a great tool to determine your latest website trends and your visitors’ or users’ preferences in terms of site features. Here are the benefits of web analytics.

Number 1: It helps monitor your visitors and users

With web analytics, you would know how long your visitor stayed in your website, who they are and where they came from. You will be able to know their clickstreams, the keywords they used, and how they came to be in your website (referrer pages, search engines, etc). You would be able to determine how many times a user or a visitor returned to your website and which pages were given preference.

In fact, a web analytics tool would tell you your website usage down to the last specifics. It would tell you about your visitor’s nationality and language. It can even pinpoint the city of origin. Of course, it will tell you the IP addresses and the host used for access. Further analysis would reveal if your visitors were there to actually check out your site or if they were mere strays. Most certainly, you will know how many visitors you get daily.

Number 2: It can help you optimize your website

Once you have carefully studied the actions of your visitors or web users, you would be able to act accordingly in order to optimize your website. You would also have an idea about the things that need changing and the aspects of your website that may appeal more to your market. You would know which pages are most viewed and which are basically ignored. You would be able to adjust certain aspects of your website that need improvement or adjustments. You could then fix any technical problems; or you could also improve, streamline or reshape site navigation to better assist your site users or visitors.

Number 3: It can help you formulate a sales and e-marketing plan

Web analytics will be able to assist you in preparing for an e-marketing plan and course of action. This will be more effective because your plan would be based on actual facts and not mere probabilities. You would be able to really know what your market wants. By tracking the items which were highly viewed, you would learn which products received the highest response. You would also be able to enhance other programs that you have already employed like pay-per-click or PPC advertising. You would be able to get more clients, as well as monitor and keep your clients interested.

Wordpress Blogs and Websites Under Brute Force Attack

2013-04-13T00:20:00.003-07:00

If you have a Blog or website on Wordpress your action is requires. it would be good to ensure you are using very strong passwords and to make sure your username is not “admin.” According to reports from HostGator and CloudFlare, there is currently a significant attack being launched at WordPress blogs across the Internet. For the most part, this is a brute-force dictionary-based attack that aim to find the password for the ‘admin’ account that every WordPress site sets up by default.

HostGator’s analysis found that this is a well-organized and very distributed attack. The company believes that about 90,000 IP addresses are currently involved. CloudFlare, its founder and CEO Matthew Prince told me earlier today, thinks the hackers control about 100,000 bots. As for the scope of the attack, Prince says that CloudFlare saw attacks on virtually every WordPress site on its network.

If somebody guesses your WordPress password, that’s obviously a big problem, but attacks like this then open up ways for the hackers to take over your server – and that’s what whoever is behind this attack is clearly after. The CloudFlare team believes that the attacker is currently using a network of relatively low-powered home PCs, but the aim is “to build a much larger botnet of beefy servers in preparation for a future attack.” Home PCs can be the staging ground for a large denial-of-service attack, but servers have access to far more bandwidth and can hence push out far larger amounts of traffic.

This currently attack is similar to an attack in 2012 that was also aimed at WordPress sites. That attack, however, was looking for outdated versions of TimThumb, a popular PHP-based image resizer that is often used as the default by many WordPress templates.

Both CloudFlare and HostGator, as well as a number of other hosting providers, have taken measures to protect their customers. Besides choosing a very strong password – which is always a good idea – you can also install a number of WordPress plugins that limit the number of login attempts from the same IP address or network to put a stop to these brute-force attacks (though as WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg notes in a blog post this afternoon, changing your ‘admin’ username to something ab it more obscure may be your best defense given that the hackers do have 90,000 IPs at their disposal). If your site is hosted on WordPress.com, you can also turn on two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security.

Source: Techcrunch

Create your Digital Will with Google Inactive Account Manager

2013-04-11T15:36:00.003-07:00

Every day we create content online in form of emails, blog post, store files on cloud etc. do we ever think of what happens to this content when we die? Well, some folks at Google thought about it and launch a feature that allows you decide what happens to your account after death; this feature is called Inactive Account Manager.

With this feature it is easy to instruct Google "what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account". According to Google Product Manager, Andreas Tuerk, Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. With this feature, you can set what happens with your Gmail messages and data from several other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason. For example, you can choose to delete your data after three, six, nine or twelve months of inactivity. Alternatively, you can select trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the following services: +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.

Before any action is taken, Google will try to contact you via text message on your cell phone or your alternative email provided to be sure you have not switched to a rival provider. Google however advice that you plan you digital afterlife in a way that protects your privacy and security when you are long gone and also make life easier for your family and friends.

Google Nose BETA Launched

2013-04-01T16:34:00.002-07:00

I was searching Google for the latest trend in cloud computing, and on the top search category list, I saw Nose beta. Out of curiosity, I clicked to find out more, watch the video:

"Google Nose BETA leverages new and existing technologies to offer the sharpest olfactory experience available" The Google nose BETA features includes:

Street Sense vehicles have inhaled and indexed millions of atmospheric miles.
Android Ambient Odor Detection collects smells via the world's most sensible mobile operating system.
SMELLCD™ 1.8+ high-resolution compatible for precise and controlled odors.

you can find out more information here. Before you do, Google Nose is not real; it’s among the company’s many April Fool’s Day jokes.

Social Media as an Emerging Theme in IS Strategy

2013-03-29T09:12:00.004-07:00

Hello guys, I'll like to share my presentation on Social Media as an Emerging Theme in IS Strategy.

The 21st century is characterized with various kinds of challenges that are essentially affecting the ways businesses operate; these challenges are driven by events happening inside and outside of the organizations. Organizations need to study these events and strategize around them in other to remain in business or gain more grounds.
In view of this competitive realities faced by businesses, this presentation looks at social media as one of such events that are changing the global business climate.

Contemporary Emerging Themes in Information System Strategy

Social Media is not a distraction, it boost Productivity

2013-03-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Far from diverting employees from their jobs, social media and smartphones actually make staff more productive - and employers should learn to deal with that new reality. Access to social networks via mobile devices gives staff a “virtual co-presence” with direct benefits for the business in which they work, according to a new study.

That core presence enables workers to complete collective tasks more effectively by giving them a greater freedom over when and where they do their jobs, the study of technology companies in the UK, Germany and Finland found.

“This was an investigatory study, rather than a statistical proving. But it was very obvious that social media allows people to accomplish a lot more,” said Joe Nandhakumar, professor of information systems at Warwick Business School, which conducted the research.

“We can feel that in the academic environment. If you take that connectivity away, we are completely unable to work,” he said. According to Nandhakumar, evidence from the research suggests that knowledge workers who manage their presence successfully and control their responses are better at organising workflow. He argued that social media is not an entertainment medium with side-benefits for business. “It’s not a by-product. It’s the main thing,” he said.

Nandhakumar pointed out that social media is a central part of the culture of knowledge workers, “It’s not a secondary effect. You can’t avoid it. You can’t ban it, so how do we make this work for the organisation?” he said.

Social media as a diversion

He warned against organisations treating social media and easy access to it via mobile devices as a distraction for employees. “They said that about email. They said that about the telephone. Businesses should change - social media is a fact of life,” he said.

“You can’t stop people having this connectivity so we need to find out how we can manage it and how we can make it into something more positive rather than trying to ban it. Anything can be a distraction - a computer can be a distraction - it depends on how you use it.”

Nandhakumar said successful organisations used to focus strongly on processes and then on connecting people. Now social media can provide a layer on top of ERP systems. “We can have the people on top of the processes to get the best of both,” he said.

“What we should do as companies, we should empower employees to deal with social media and how they can spend their time productively. We can’t really control these things. They are there for the knowledge worker.”

The Warwick Business School paper is entitled Exploring social network interactions in enterprise systems: the role of virtual co-presence. It is due to be published in the Information Systems Journal.