No matter how you observe Memorial Day, remember those that have fought for your freedom. It can be easy to forget the price that some pay for the rest of us. It’s a tough topic to write on because, when you think about it and put it into perspective, what more can you say other than “thank you”?

ENA would like to thank all veterans, as well as those who are still serving. Within the ENA family, we want to recognize the following veterans:
Wendi Powers
Charles Banks
Mike Yoders
Mike Byers
Mark Smith
Patrick Connor
Dan Haskell
Cory Ayers
Dan Whorton
James Denney

Thanks to each and everyone one of you.

If you or someone you know is a veteran or is currently still enlisted, let us know below or on Facebook and Twitter, and tell us when and where they served.

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1. How long have you been riding, and how did you get started?
2. What kind of bike do you ride, and why?
3. What do you like most about riding?
4. Highest and lowest moments?
5. Do you have any recommendations, words of wisdom, cautionary statements, or anything else you’d like to add?

Their answers are as follows:

Aaron Hurt

1) I’ve been riding off and on for quite a few years.  I got my first little trail bike, a Honda CT-70, when I was around 9 years old.  I rode that little bike all over the backroads around Oklahoma.  These were the kind of roads where they just scrape off the top soil and leave a path of red clay and flint rock to drive on.  I had a few other bikes in between growing up, but I got rid of them all when I got married and hadn’t had one for nearly 10 years until recently.

2) I’m currently riding a 2007 Suzuki Boulevard S40 (650cc).  It’s a smaller custom cruiser type bike … that’s the style I like.  The reasoning behind the particular brand/model is simple … it was in my price range and was in great condition.

3) I really enjoy just being out in the open.  I love a nice warm day when I can feel the sun on my skin and smell the honeysuckle as I go down the road.  You don’t realize how much you miss about your trail in a car.  When you’re on a bike you can feel the cool spots in the shade where the road crosses a little creek or stream and the warm spots where the tree canopy parts and the sun warms the air.

4)  My highest moment was probably way back when I got my first bike… I don’t really remember how old I was, but I do remember where I was and mostly everything else about the day my dad pulled that old CT-70 out of the back of his pickup truck.
Lowest would definitely be when I got rid of my last bike before this one and hung things up after I got married and right around the time our first little girl was born.  My wife told me I could get another bike now that we can afford to up my life insurance policy.

5)  When you’re driving your car, remember there might be a much smaller vehicle right beside you with one of us sitting on it without a big metal shell to protect us.

Dan Haskell

1) I started riding motorcycles when I was around 8 years old and have been riding since… so going on about 22 years now. My Dad bought my brother and me 80cc Honda dirt bikes back in the day, and I have been hooked ever since!

2) I ride a Buell 1125r Superbike, but I have ridden Harleys in the past. A mentor of mine in the Air Force told me “The closest thing I have found to flying a jet has been my sport bike.” While I can’t base THAT on experience, I can say it is an amazing feeling to be weaving through chicanes at a brisk speed!

3) The freedom. The old cliché “Ride to live, live to ride!” is absolutely true. The adrenaline rush is addicting.

4) Highest moment is when I rode the Rocky Mountains with my family. Some of the most amazing scenery and roads I have ever had the pleasure to ride. Lowest moment would be when I went to Sturgis…”You will never find a more retched hive of scum and villainy”… But hey, I still had a blast.

5) Riding my motorcycle is one of the greatest stress relievers in my life… but it does come with some inherent dangers. You have to ride with the mentality that someone is going to take you out. That constant alertness along with the proper riding equipment could help save your life. Ride safe, and have fun!

Jay Power

1) I grew up riding four wheelers (or three wheelers if you remember them), and I raced BMX for a while getting used to riding in the dirt. When I was 12 years old, my parents bought me a blue 50cc moped along with a group of parents in our neighborhood. Like any pack of boys with newfound freedom, we created a gang called the Blue Angels (some more appropriately called us devils) as we all had blue mopeds. We treated those mopeds like dirt bikes and buses hauling friends around on skateboards hanging off the blinkers and hauling through the neighborhood yards finding the fastest way home. It was a great time and cemented my love for all things with two wheels. After that early experience, my Mother swore she would never allow me to own a motorcycle in high school, and I probably owe her my life for it. I did find friends’ bikes to ride, but nothing that I could call my own until I hit college when I picked up a 1200cc Buell Cyclone.

2) I currently have a Honda VTR-1000 sportbike and a Kawasaki KDX200 2 stroke dirtbike. I ride them for the feeling of adrenaline, freedom, and accomplishment. I enjoy pushing myself to my limit on both of them on closed courses, and it usually only takes about 15 mins of riding to set the world back into perspective. On the street, the sportbike is a lot of fun, but you spend a lot of time concentrating on your environment and the “cagers” (our 4 wheeled brethren) who, unknowingly on their cell phones, can tragically end your day with one mistake.

3) On the sportbike, I am convinced there is no better feeling than going through a corner with rider and bike in perfect harmony with a knee on the ground. The road will generously reward that experience with traction beyond your wildest dreams, and it gives you a new found respect for man and machine.

There isn’t much about riding a dirtbike that I don’t like, and of the two, I find myself grinning ear to ear from a dirtbike ride more than riding on the street. Pulling out of a corner on one wheel with a rooster-tail thrown up behind you like a victory flag is an awesome experience.

4) Highest moment for me would have been at the Carolina Motorsport Park on my sportbike when I finally started to “click” with the track. I had been riding all day and not really feeling in sync, but on the last session on the track, all the hard work started to fall into place. I found an instructor pacing in front of me and made it my goal to overtake him. After battling through the straights and corners, on the last lap of the session, I took him on the last corner.

I’ve been fortunate as to not have any serious accidents on my bikes, but there have been days when I’ve parked it after multiple close calls. My lowest times have all been around when friends and family have been injured on bikes.

5) Words of wisdom that have been told to me that I take to heart:

-          “Dress for the fall, not the ride”. I wear full leathers with armor or enough gear with armor that, should I go down, my skin won’t be what touches the ground. People always ask me if I’m hot in the summer, to which I reply, “Sweat is easy to wipe off. Skin is pretty hard to put back on”.

-          “Look where you want to go.” This is a life mantra for me, but on a motorcycle, it is especially true that if you look at what you are trying to miss, you will inevitably hit it. Look where you want to go, and your mind will do the rest.

John Smith

1) I’ve been riding off and on since I was 8 or 9. My family had several motorcycles, and I had three brothers who rode. That was mostly trail with a little street riding and just your basic raising of heck. By the time I got old enough to ride on the street, one of my brothers had a wreck and nearly lost a thumb. Yech! Well, my parents sold all the motorcycles, so I didn’t get to ‘inherit’ one, but I got into bicycles and road BMX for a few years. Around 1986 when I turned 20, I purchased my first motorcycle, a ’76 Honda CB750 for $500 bucks out of a man’s barn. I road that bike all over until 1993 when I sold it to my brother. In 2004, I came back to motorcycles with a BMW 1150R.

2) I’m currently riding a Harley Davidson Road King. I’ve loved this bike since Harley introduced it back in ’94 or ’95, and I finally decided to get one. Back in 2004, it was a toss-up between the BMW and the Road King. The Beemer won out, but I think I always regretted that decision. I corrected that mistake this year! There is just something so classic about the look and ride of the Road King that makes me smile even when I’m not riding it. Of course, I smile even more when I am riding it, but that should go without saying.

3) Riding! It’s hard to describe. There is a connection with the world you get when you’re out there on two wheels. Even a one hour ride will feel like a journey. This is also the reason I still ride bicycles.

4) Back in the late 80’s my girlfriend and I took a multiday ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had very little money, but we had a $500 motorcycle and our freedom. Cliché, but so true! Let’s just say this: it’s a good thing I’m mechanically inclined.

I can’t think of one low moment on a motorcycle. I’ve been fortunate and had no real close calls other than of my own making, but I always had leather and helmet when I hit the ground. Still, I don’t recommend it.

5) Ride like they’re out to get you, and wear protection. And take a safety course. And seriously, get a real helmet!

Kevin Bonds

1) I’ve been riding for about a year and a half, but I grew up riding dirt bikes as a kid. I got my first Sears, pull-start, one-speed mini-bike at about age 6 or 7. My first ride was in a large parking lot, and it lasted for about 15 feet –ending on the right, front quarter-panel of the family car. After that, I stuck to riding dirt till I bought my current bike.

2) 2004 Harley-Davidson Sportster 883XL.

3) If I have to explain it, man…you wouldn’t understand.

4) Highest moments?… Riding.  Lowest moments? Not riding.

5) Ride like everyone else is out to kill you…because they are.

In honor of Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, we want to remind everyone to be aware that motorcyclists are out there! Look twice. Save a life.

If anyone has any questions or comments, let us know! Facebook and Twitter

Aaron Hurt is a R&D Engineer.
Dan Haskell is a Customer Support Engineer.
Jay Power is the Director of Engineering.
John Smith is the Senior Software Engineer.
Kevin Bonds is a Technical Administrator.

The Broadband Imperative: Recommendations to Address K-12 Education Infrastructure Needs

The Broadband Imperative gives guidance and information concerning broadband, and it exemplifies state and district examples that have benefited from improvement, showing the impact achieved by successful implementation.

ENA played a very active role in developing the report, which was the product of much collaboration between state educational technology leaders, leading technology companies, and policy and practitioner experts, and the report is being promoted across the U.S. As sponsors, ENA’s very own Bob Collie and Lil Kellogg attended the press event.

To learn more, check out the Executive Summary and the Full Report here.

To help you get to know these talented individuals, they were each asked one question:

If you we’re an app, what app would you be?

Their answers may surprise you:

Want to know more? Ask questions in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter, and tell what app you would be! We’d love to know!

Danni Rocque is ENA’s Implementation Admin.

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At the same time, I’ve recently heard from several people that they think Facebook is dead.  “The kids have moved on to Twitter…” is a common theme.  “Facebook is for adults…” is another.  The argument is that the high school and college kids feel they have no privacy with Facebook and that there are too many parents and adults filling-up their wall with game notifications.

Then in the past week or so, General Motors announced they were pulling all of their paid advertising from Facebook.  GM indicated they simply did not see increased car sales directly tied to the $10 million they had spent buying ads on Facebook in 2011.  Depending on which article you read, this is either a sign of GM not understanding the market or Facebook not being able to reach their ad revenue targets. Either way, it may mark a shift in how ads are delivered to Facebook users

There may be some truth behind all of these signs of Facebook’s demise, but I would argue Facebook is far from dead. It may mean there will be changes to who we see posting or how ads are delivered, but there are a lot people in the world that have made Facebook a significant portion of their lives.  The largest photo sharing site on the web is now Facebook.  The most games played online are through Facebook.  What we don’t know yet is what type of momentum the IPO will have for the company and what innovations they will deliver to keep things fresh.

For me, Facebook started as a way to connect with high school classmates as preparations for our 20^th reunion began.  It is amazing to see where friends are now and to see into a snippet of their lives today and since I last saw them.  I connect with my friends today, as well as a number of other Disney theme park fans around the world.  I also get to keep-up on co-workers in ENA’s Nashville office and with those spread across the country.  Births of babies, vacations to Hawaii that turn into weddings, and opportunities to learn more about those I work with are a fun way for me to be able to connect on a more personal level with the people I work with on a daily basis.  Of course, not everyone is on Facebook or wants to connect with co-workers or even old friends.  And I admit I don’t post as much as I stalk… I mean follow.

Facebook has become a major part of how we socialize and stay connected.  I hope they do well with the IPO and continue to bring the world closer together.

So tell us, what do you think? Comment below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

Brian Hubbard is ENA’s Indiana Account Service Manager.

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Awesome job, guys!

Do you have any questions? What do you think? Comment below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

To learn more and see which other schools ranked, visit http://www.convergemag.com/awards/digital-districts/2011-12-Digital-School-Districts-Winners.html.

What do you think about the rankings? Comment below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

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Nobody likes them.

Who wants to use them?

They’re annoying.

Unfortunately, they are a necessary evil today.  Everywhere we go, we have to enter a password or PIN.  Who has time to remember all of them?  We forget to update them, and when we do, we try to make it something memorable.  This usually means we choose something simple.  It can be the name of our child, a favorite pet, or something funny and clever (ex. bigboy).  Deep down, we all know that these are not secure.  But, there is hope!  Using a few (some might even say fun) techniques, we can create a secure password that would stump even the most clever of hackers.

For those of you who think you already have a great password or don’t need to read this fantastic article, let’s remember why we actually need passwords.  They are often the first and last means of defense against intrusion.   Think about it, hackers are only ONE word away from a treasure trove of personal information and/or financial gain.  (Ironically, the best protection people have is usually the one they take least seriously.)   We use passwords to protect our secrets, financial data, health and medical information, intellectual property, etc.  It can be a password for something as simple as Facebook or as sensitive as our bank account.  The fact is we use passwords everywhere!

Let’s talk about how passwords can be obtained.  Password cracking is the process of figuring out or breaking passwords in order to gain unauthorized entrance to a system or account. It is much easier than most users would think.  The number one way hackers get into protected systems isn’t through a fancy technical exploit. It’s by guessing the password.  That’s not too hard when the most common password used today is “Password1.”   A Dictionary Attack is a popular technique used to guess passwords.  A hacker will systematically enter every word in the dictionary as a password.  They will also try this technique and append the end with a number or the current year (i.e., password2012).  Generally, dictionary attacks succeed because many people have a tendency to choose passwords which are short (7 characters or fewer), single words found in dictionaries or simple, easily-predicted variations on words, such as appending a digit. Another way that hackers can obtain passwords is by using associative words.  If they know who you are (most of this information can be found on your Facebook page), they will find words particular to you. Let’s say your name is “John Smith,” you drive a “BMW,” and you like to watch “The Office.” A hacker will Google these terms and create wordlists from the resulting Web pages. Thus, “Carell325i” seems like a fine 10-character password to defeat hackers, but will get cracked in only a few minutes by a hacker who knows you.   According to a 2012 Global Security Report, here are the top 10 most commonly used passwords today(it goes without saying that you should never use these!):

1. Password1
2. welcome
3.password
4. Welcome1
5. welcome1
6. Password2
7. 123456
8. Password01
9. Password3
10. P@ssword

Now that we have established the importance of passwords and some of the ways in which they may be vulnerable to cracking, we can discuss ways of creating good, strong passwords.  As stated earlier, you will want to avoid using any word that can be found in a dictionary.  You should also avoid ANY personal information.  This could include your name, nickname, date of birth, last 4 digits of Social Security number, etc.

A strong effective password requires a necessary degree of complexity.  There are three factors to consider when creating a password:  Length, width, and depth.  Basically, the longer the password, the better.  Probability dictates that the longer the password is the more difficult it will be to guess or hack.  There are other factors to also include though:

• Length - Make your passwords long with eight or more characters.
• Width – Include uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers. Use the entire keyboard, not just the letters and characters you use or see most often. The greater the variety of characters in your password, the better.
• Depth – Choose a password with a challenging meaning – something you could not guess.  Try using a mnemonic phrase.  A mnemonic phrase could be a phrase spoken phonetically such as “iAm#1GuYa0”.  “I am the number 1 guy around”.  It’s silly but it works!

If you would like to see how secure or unsecure your password is, try a website that will test it for you.  www.passwordmeter.com or www.howsecureismypassword.net are great places to start.  I tested the password that I created above (iAm#1GuYa0) to see how long it would take for a hacker to be able to attain it.  It would take about 928 years!  That would help me to sleep better at night.

Lastly, don’t use the same password for everything. Cybercriminals steal passwords on websites that have very little security, and then they use that same password and user name in more secure environments, such as banking websites, Facebook, Gmail, PayPal, Amazon, etc.  You’d be surprised or ashamed at the number of people who use the same password for everything!

On a closing note, I’m going to leave you with some words of wisdom that were handed down in my family from generation to generation.  Well, maybe not generations, but they are wise words nonetheless that are not easy to forget.  “Passwords are like underwear!”  Change them often.  Don’t leave them lying around.  And don’t let your friends borrow them.

So tell us, what do you think? Comment below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

Zak Willis is a Senior Customer Service Engineer with ENA’s CTAC.

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In a testimony before the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, the Boeing Company’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Administration, Rick Stephens, described America as a “nation falling further behind” in science and engineering education. He further stated, “Our industry needs more innovative young scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians to replace baby boomers as they retire.”

In 2010, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology stated:

We must prepare students so they have a strong foundation in STEM subjects and are able to use this knowledge in their personal and professional lives. And we must inspire students so that all are motivated to study STEM subjects in school and many are excited about the prospect of having careers in STEM fields.

How can we inspire students to “study [STEM] subjects in school and [excite them] about the prospect of having careers in STEM fields” you ask? By example.

Those of us who have pursued a career in a STEM field often trace that decision to a single, often the same, moment in time—the first time we saw man leave the earth. Names befitting action heroes, like Armstrong and Buzz, were lifted into space and into the collective consciousness of school kids everywhere. We marveled at the endeavor and were awestruck by the immense technical knowledge and skill on display as these marvels of smoke and fire lifted man into the precariousness of space. NASA, the Apollo missions, the Space Shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope have inspired countless to follow in the footsteps of the men and women who built the complex machinery that pushed the bounds of what mankind was capable of achieving—and they inspired students everywhere. Additionally, the example they set forth may have supplied the motivation necessary to forge ahead, with trepidation, into the unfamiliar territory of calculus, electromagnetic theory and differential equations.

Today we find ourselves without a manned space flight program in the U.S. Some fear that the next half-century will lack the inspirational focal points of the past—the spectacle of a rocket launch or the images of the first steps on another celestial body. However, the truth may be that we are at the dawn of a new beginning in the exploration of space.

Dreamers are taking up the challenge through privately owned companies, and they are forging ahead in exciting ways promising the better, more efficient solutions that are the hallmark of American business and innovation. Currently, a rocket dubbed the Falcon 9 built by Elon Musk, PayPal founder and CEO/CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), sits on a launch pad in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, powered by nine Merlin engines (designed and built in-house) that have a combined total thrust of 1.1 million pounds per foot, is set to blast off carrying the Dragon space capsule to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has had many firsts in its short history—including being the only non-governmental entity to ever send and recover a spacecraft from orbit, and now, with the Falcon 9, SpaceX will attempt to become the first non-governmental entity to complete a mission to the ISS orbiting 230 miles above the earth. This event may prove to be one of those pivotal moments in history that can only be truly understood in hindsight. This will mark a new era. While the Dragon will not carry human cargo on this flight, the capsule is currently being “man-rated” to carry seven astronauts into low earth orbit. Recently Elon Musk tweeted, “5 years max before we fly civilians.”

You can view the Falcon 9/Dragon launch schedule updates here and the live stream of the launch here on launch day.

So tell us, what do you think about the Falcon 9/Dragon launch? Comment below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

Kevin Bonds, ENA Technical Administrator is currently working on a degree in Aerospace Technology and Engineering while working at ENA. He has spent time working in advanced space propulsion research at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and he has published papers on research in plasma and electric propulsion for space flight.

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