American Momma

Some days feel impossible. Things can get so heavy. How can I possibly keep doing this? I hate everything in my life. My job sucks. I can’t do anything right. I suck. No one likes me or wants to hang out with me. My coworkers hate me. My own kids don’t like me. I am so insignificant. I’m just old and angry. I just want to quit.

I could go on and on. And today I am feeling all of those things. I’m having a rough day. Work really sucked. I’m not sleeping well and I’m feeling exhausted and burnt out. But here’s the really big important thing – I acknowledge that this is how I’m feeling at the moment. I’ve been here before, and unfortunately, I’ll probably be here again at some point.

Life is cyclical. It goes in cycles. And probably more so for women. But everyone goes through these cycles. There will be highs and there will be lows. We would all love to be riding on that high every day! Man wouldn’t that be great! And if we could just remember and focus on those highs it might make the lows a little easier.

But we all forget and get in that rut and maybe even get stuck there for a while. We may get that negative soundtrack running through our heads. Life just seems almost unbearable. But this is not new. It’s not the first time you’ve ever been down, is it? It’s actually familiar. And that’s why we need to acknowledge all the garbage. Yes, I am having a bad day. My negative soundtrack is so loud I can’t focus on anything else. I just want to quit!

So, I will quit. I’ll quit the moment. I’ll quit momentarily. I acknowledge that I am feeling down. I’m feeling lost. OMG here’s that big scary word. I’m depressed. But I’ve been all that before. I know there will be a high point again. This is not my final destination. It’s just an uncomfortable layover I have to get past. And by acknowledging it, I can let it go and get past it.

So be good and be gentile with yourself when you need to. It’s okay to get through a rough day at work and go straight home and put on your jammies. That’s what I did today. I have a huge list of things I needed to do when I got home. But for the moment I quit. I’m not going to stress it. I’m not going to worry about what I didn’t do. I’m going to quit the moment and allow myself to rest and heal. I’ll go back to kicking ass tomorrow.

The concept of flying cars has been around for quite some time. Many of us have fond childhood memories of the Jetsons. But the concept has been around long before the Jetsons. Even during the Renaissance Da Vinci was dreaming of a personal flying machine. There are countless sci-fi books and movies involving flying machines. Some of my favorite movies involve flying machines. Of course who could forget the excitement of the pod racer scene in Star Wars Phantom Menace? Perhaps one of the best movies ever is The Fifth Element. We have Bruce Willis flying a taxi in a futuristic earth where flying cars are commonplace. And we can’t leave out Star Trek if were talking about flying cars. We get a good look at them in Star Trek Into the Darkness.

While all of this may be entertaining it’s not as far-fetched as it appears. Many companies have already produced prototypes and concept designs. While some flying car concepts are commercial, some are private. And some are autonomous while others are piloted. The fact that there are actual prototypes being flown and tested is very exciting.

The concept I find most interesting is the sky taxi. Even with many hurdles still ahead there are already a whole cast of competing startups and established companies in discussion with NASA and the FFA on how to bring this proposed new class of aircraft into service. These designs have capitalized on the electric power, propeller design, and software pioneered for consumer drones. The development of a broad array of flight control firmware and software is quickly evolving and adapting to meet this new market.

Because many of these designs are electric powered they could greatly increase our air quality and help reduce pollution. This would be further multiplied if the concept were to include large scale transportation such as city bus systems. I’m not sure if the general public is actually ready for completely autonomous transportation. I know I would have reservations on using a machine that I couldn’t drive if an emergency situation arose. With price tags starting at $300,000 I don’t think we will see many flying cars anytime soon. But we do seem to be poised to fly into the future.

Resources:

Flying Cars: What, How, When, and Why? (quillette.com)

How close are we to driving flying cars? – BBC Reel

British Engineers reveal ground-breaking electric uncrewed concept vehicle | BAE Systems | International

Leonardo da Vinci’s Flying Machine Invention — Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions (da-vinci-inventions.com)

Star Wars: Episode I – Pod Race – Bing video

Chase Scene – Star Trek into Darkness – Bing video

Sky taxis: How to make them a reality – Aerospace America (aiaa.org)

Ground Control – Complete Software for Drones | Measure

Instagram is not just to share photos and memes. Yes it is super fun to scroll and see what everyone is posting. But Instagram is so much more. And Instagram is for all age groups so you have a super large pool of potential clients. If you’ve spent any time on this app you will see the many business advantages. I ran an online business on Instagram for a while and I’d like to point out some tips for marketing your business on the Instagram app.

Probably the most important thing is to share, share, share. You have to be seen to get your business noticed, to get the clients. One post a day is not going to cut it. And it’s not as hard as it seems. But in order to get your message out there, you need to be seen by thousands just to land a few clients.

The first step is to post 5 to 20 short clips and or photos a day. Motivational photos are great! Cheer people on their journey. If you want people to use a product they have to also see you using the product and hyping the line.  And just posting is not enough, you need to invite people.  Start with a free offer. People love something for free and it often turns in to a purchase next time. You can start with small free samples. Or you can offer free recipes or meal plans and this cost you nothing.

You also need to follow people with the same interest as you. This can be tricky and it’s easy to get lost scrolling. One way to make this a little easier is with an instabot. I’m sure you can search and find one online probably for a small fee. One of our up line coach had a husband that created one just for us. Basically you tell the bot what hashtags you want to follow and how many per day. Then the little bot goes out there and finds the hashtags that match and follows them for you. And people start following you back.

And don’t forget about the stories! Your story is a series of short clips or photo with text and fun stickers or effects. People love the stories. If you can get them hooked with a good story they will come back for more.

And the best part of having a business on Instagram????   You can link it to your Facebook page which is then next mobile app I would like to tell you about.

Yes you can run a business on a Facebook mobile app too! And having these two linked can save you a ton of time. But just because they are linked does not mean you can set it and forget it. Facebook has a few different features from Instagram. And if they were identical that would just be boring. You can also reference yourself on each app so that people will follow you on both platforms.

A good way to build interest and viewers across platforms is to start a story on Facebook and end on a cliff hanger saying check it out on my Instagram page. This can obviously work both ways.

Facebook ads have been around for a long time and can definitely help you reach some new audiences. Ads let you target a specific audience for a specific time. And of course there is a fee. But one month you might want to target moms of toddlers and the next you might want to target men who are teachers. Switch it up often for best results.

Another super cool feature is the scheduler. We all work and have lives we can’t sit on Facebook all day. The scheduler lets you load up all of your posts for the day and you tell it what time you want them to be posted. It posts them for you so no matter what time of day people are on line they have a good chance of seeing one of your posts.

Being able to accept payments online is also a huge plus for online business. Facebook makes it relatively easy to set up Facebook pay. So your clients can see how amazing the product works for you and then simply click a link to order and pay. It really can be that easy.

Resources:

Honestly I wrote 99% of this from my own experience. But here are some cool links with awesome info to check out.

Sending Money With Messenger | Facebook Pay

How to Get Started With Instagram Stories for Business : Social Media Examiner

Hootsuite – Instagram Carousel

Set Up a Business Account on Instagram | Instagram Help Center

How to Use Instagram for Business: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide (hootsuite.com)

How Facebook Business Manager Works | Facebook for Business

How to Use Facebook Business Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide (hootsuite.com)

How to Use Facebook Business Manager: A Complete Guide : Social Media Examiner

Get Later’s Facebook scheduler for free | Later

I am so glad for modern mobile technology. I think it is especially important as many of us older users are using technology more and more. Gone are the days of the little black book. Keeping an address book is now right at our fingertips. And so is our calendar, alarm clock, notebook for shopping lists. No need to remember phone numbers. If we can remember to put something on our calendar it will give us reminders of the upcoming birthdays or events. And we can set personalized ringtones for each person, so we know who to ignore just by their ringtone. And while our brains not being used for remembering phone numbers and birthdays, we are remembering so much new information. And there’s always games to keep us sharp and challenge our brains.

But just like anything too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. So many of us have our faces constantly buried in our devices. I myself can also be guilty of this. I do love to scroll all forms of social media.  While I don’t sleep with my phone I am definitely guilty of occasionally having it in the bathroom. However, I do not use my phone when out with family or friends. I try to keep it to a minimum and actually interact with those around me. This is not always the case in the younger crowd.

I definitely see mobile technology as a benefit to society. In our every changing, busy, lives it is nice to be able to connect and share and even work in any location. Many people are able to operate their own business solely from their phone. And if I could not check on my kids at least once or twice a day I would be even more of a stressed out mom.  I think the main consequence of an on-demand culture is the loss of time. When I realized that I just wasted an hour scrolling, instead of doing all the things I had planned to do it can be very disappointing. Time once gone is something you can never get back.

So while technology can be fun, it can also be very distracting. We all need a good balance. Real human interaction is much more rewarding than simply scrolling our phone.

Cloud computing lets you access your data and programs over the internet.

Cloud services are the software, platforms, or infrastructure hosted by third party providers and made available to users through the internet.

Google Drive is a cloud computing service with all storage found entirely online. It can interact with other cloud productivity aps such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Google Drive is super convenient and can be accessed from many devices such as a desktop, tablet or mobile device. It can also be used a repository for your own personal documents and information, but is more often used for a team of people to all access shared information. My personal experience with Google Drive is mostly from using Google Docs. When I worked as a Beachbody Coach all of our challenges, meal plans, workout schedules and every possible thing we needed to promote our online business was stored and accessed through Google Drive. This is a super easy and convenient way to work as a team and share what works. It is also super easy to pre make meal plans and artwork to make daily posting easy for new members. And to keep track of training and events.

Apple iCloud is primarily used for online storage and backup. But it can also synchronize your mail, contacts, calendar and much more. iCloud is built into every apple device and has 5GB of free storage. All files from all of your Apple devices can be kept in iCloud Drive so that you can access them from any of your devices. You can utilize a private link to share files and documents.  I personally mostly us my iCloud for storage and backup. I have a very large amount of photos on the cloud. I actually have to pay for extra storage for my iPhone because I have so many photos. I also use iTunes for music storage. Probably my most favorite cloud service is Siri. Siri is a virtual assistant. She can set alarms, put things on my calendar, look up recipes, and tell me how many carbs are in any food. I also often ask her to look up phone numbers or addresses of place I need to go or call.

• Would this application/system work as well NOT in the cloud?

No I do not think either would work efficiently not in the cloud. We would have to go back to manual storage and sharing.

• What are the advantages to having this system on a distributed network?

There is an advantage in network speed as the information is not in a central location and can be accessed by a large number of people without creating a bottleneck.

• Do you have any security or privacy concerns when using this system?

I think we should all be aware of security and privacy. There is always the potential for information to be misused.

• Anything else you’d like to share about cloud services.

Cloud services have developed at a superfast pace. And I think the trend will continue as more and more people come to rely on cloud computing. More people are working remotely and it is more important than ever to be able to share information and work as a team even when we can’t be in the same location.

Interesting articles about cloud services and cloud computing:

What are cloud services? (redhat.com)

What Is Cloud Computing? | PCMag

Understanding cloud computing (redhat.com)

iCloud – Apple

1. What were the top three social media sites, in terms of traffic, in 2020? List them in order of popularity.

Facebook 2.7 billion active users per month $86 billion in revenue

YouTube 2 billion active users per month $19.9 billion in revenue

Whatsapp 2 billion active users per month $5 billion in revenue

2. Provide a brief summary of how each social media site works and why people use it.

Facebook – The place to connect and share. I use Facebook daily. It’s fun to keep up on what friends and family are doing. It offers some news though often biased. And you can find some of the coolest and most unusual products for sale on Facebook. I think most people use Facebook because it is pretty simple to use. My 80 year old mother is even on Facebook.

YouTube – I originally thought was just for music. But there are actually tutorial videos on pretty much anything you want to learn. I have used Photoshop tutorials. I have also watched a tutorial on how to clean my firearm. Most of the content creators will promote products which helps them earn money.

Whatsapp – I am not very experience on Whatsapp. It does seem every scammer online posing as a real person wants to get you off of other social sites and onto Whatsapp. It is supposed to be a messaging app. Users can text, chat, share media and use voice messaging and video messaging. A pretty cool feature is that you can send your GPS location to your group chat.

3. What are “demographics” and why is it important in social media?

Demographics are the breakdown of the users of the apps. These are broke down not only by age, but also by gender and location, time of day, minutes used per day, and many other factors.  It is very important for marketing to know these demographics so they know which age group or gender to target with their advertising and when.

4. Explain any demographics that stand out among the three social media sites you listed above. (More popular with a specific age group, are majority of users male or female, married or single, employees or self-employed, etc.)

Wow there are more male (56%) Facebook users than female (44%) Facebook users! The largest age group is 25 to 34. Average time spent on Facebook per day is 38 minutes. (apparently I’m above average 😉

YouTube demographics include 72% of all female internet users and 72% of all male internet users. The largest age group for YouTube is 15 to 25 year olds. The average user over 18 spends 41.9 minutes a day on YouTube!

Whatsapp is used by 25% of Americans and 33% of the world’s population. This makes it the most used messaging platform. 54.5% are male and 45.5% are female. The largest age group for Whatsapp is 26 to 35 year olds. Users are 98% more likely to open a message from Whatsapp than from email!

5. On average, how much time do users spend on each social media site during a day, week or month? Provide a resource that supports your answer.

Facbook users spend on average 38 minutes per day.

YouTube users spend on average  41.9 minutes per day.

Whatsapp users spend on average  28 minutes per day. They open the app 23 to 25 times per day.

6. Which of the three social media networks is growing the fastest? Why do you think that is?

Although Facebook is still the fastest growing at 7.27%, it’s growth has slowed down considerably. I think they have pretty much saturated their market. Everyone who wants Facebook already has it.

Whatsapp is poised to overtake Facebook if they continue to increase their reach. Their current growth rate is 6.25%

7. How are the majority of visitors accessing these three sites (computer, mobile device, tablet)?

95.1% of Facebook users use their mobile device to access the platform.

More than 70% of users are using mobile devices to watch YouTube

Whatsapp is designed to be used on a mobile device. Though it can be used on a desktop as long as the mobile device is connected to it.

The Top 10 Social Media Sites & Platforms 2021 (searchenginejournal.com)

Social Media Demographics to Inform your Strategy in 2021 | Sprout Social

WhatsApp Statistics for 2020 — amoCRM

70 Intriguing WhatsApp Statistics: 2021 Usage Facts & Insights – Financesonline.com

The Tops Social Media Sites – Data And Insights For 2020 (garyfox.co)

Which is the fastest growing Social Network in 2020? ( Its not who you think!) | Target Internet

Social Engineering and Phishing continue to be a huge problem in many companies, including the company where I work. Social engineering is the tactic of manipulating someone to divulge sensitive or confidential information. This information can then be used for fraudulent purposes. This type of manipulation targets human vulnerabilities and is often considered human hacking.

A social engineer will usually pose as a legitimate person and build trust with their victim. This allows them to gather information as they build trust with their victim. This process may only take the span of a few hours, but can also continue for several months while the attacker continues to gather information.

Social engineers often pose as trusted individuals in your life. These may include: a friend, coworker, boss or even your own bank.   The most common one at my work tries to trick you into thinking it is from the CEO.  These emails may contain malicious links or downloads. They may also ask for private or secure information. I personally have received such emails from my bank with urgent request for my personal information. These emails are worded in such a way as to evoke an emotional response. They tell you that this is a most urgent manner and must be dealt with immediately. The most important thing is to slow down and think if it really makes sense. If it seems off or unusual definitely stop and verify the information.

The most common phishing scam that I see at my job is a fraudulent email from the boss/CEO. It’s usually something like “Hi, I am out of the office today and I need you to go right now and buy $$$ of gift cards. Email me back when you have the gift cards. “ This email will look legit on the surface. But if you look at the actual sender you can see that yes it uses his first and last name, but it is not from our email @ofco.com. And it is usually sent to around 5 – 10 people in our organization. Us older folks recognize the scam and just shift delete. We also realize that he has a whole box of gift cards in his office. We would never need to go buy any. But the boss will get a little flurry of people calling or stopping in to ask “Did you send that email?” The best practice is just to slow down and really look at the email without responding.  If something seems off it usually is. Better to be safe than sorry.

5 Common Hacking Techniques for 2021 (mitnicksecurity.com)

What is social engineering? A definition + techniques to watch for (norton.com)

Cyber Crime — FBI

Cybersecurity, as defined by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is the art of protecting networks, devices, and data from unauthorized access or criminal use and the practice of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.

The many dangers of poor cybersecurity could include malware erasing your entire system, an attacker breaking into your system and altering files, an attacker using your computer to attack others, or an attacker stealing your credit card information and making unauthorized purchases. There is no guarantee that even with the best precautions some of these things won’t happen to you, but there are steps you can take to minimize the chances.

Five common digital threats of 2020 that could potentially affect our company are as follows:

Phishing Attacks

Phishing scams are used to steal user credentials for both on-premises attacks and cloud services attacks. Phishing attempts are now being launched through cloud applications as opposed to traditional emails. As more and more documents are stored via cloud applications this will become a more common target.

Remote Worker Endpoint Security

Due to the Corona Virus pandemic 2020 saw record numbers of people working from home. While this option worked well for many who could work remotely it also brought with it many new security challenges. Remote workers often work without any network perimeter security and mobile devices can often end up concealing signs of potential phishing attacks and other cybersecurity threats.

Cloud Jacking

Cloud Jacking is one of the most prominent cybersecurity threats in 2020 due to the increasing reliance of businesses on cloud computing. These attacks will be carried out to eavesdrop, take control of and even modify sensitive files and data stored in the cloud

Sophisticated and Targeted Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks are a major concern for businesses. The effects of a single ransomware attack can be extremely damaging to small and midsize businesses, leading to exorbitant costs associated with downtime and recovery.

Mobile Malware

Due to the increasing number of employees working from home more mobile devices will be in use than ever before. These mobile devices can potentially store large amounts of sensitive data. Mobile malware is designed to specifically target mobile phone operating systems.

We have many areas that could potentially be used to gain sensitive information. Email continues to be at the top of the list. Regardless of the amount of security in place we continue to see emails that could result in security threats. Email filters have an average 10.5-15% failure rate, so you need to practice security awareness to keep our information safe. We are seeing an increase in emails that at first glance look to come from someone internally. But on closer examination you will see that they are using the person’s name with a different email server.

As we are still seeing large numbers of our organization working from home those accessing our servers and software remotely must be especially vigilant for security threats. Company computers must only be used for company business. The potential for picking up malware from random surfing of the web is a constant threat.

Also due to an increase in remote workers is an increase of using shared cloud documents. These documents can be shared by many users and can often contain very sensitive information.

Out of date security programs are also a potential for threats. If not updated properly on all devices this could be a definite risk for a security breach.

Also be wary of meeting invite from outside our organization or from unusual email addresses. These often contain links that if clicked on can release malware or ransomware. Be sure you look before you click.

My recommendations as CIO are mostly focused around training and prevention.

All employees will receive quarterly training updates on proper email security. These will be carried out by department with each supervisor personally gaining each team members signature after completing the training module.

All company computers being used remotely will be update with security software monthly instead of quarterly. Additional firewalls will be in place to prevent a breach from the computers of our remote employees.

Additionally the only mobile devices to be used for company business must be provide by the company. You may not use any personal device to access company information.

The company cloud documents will also get an extra layer of security. Access will also be restricted to only necessary personnel.

IT will be upgrading our security software immediately. Security threats are constantly changing and we must change with them to ensure our continued safety.

https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/tips/

https://blog.techboston.com/social-engineering-red-flag

https://www.kaseya.com/blog/2020/04/15/top-10-cybersecurity-threats-in-2020/

I am interested in the best way to reduce a PDF file size without losing quality. I found and watched 3 different tutorials on youtube. All of the tutorials were very well done though in different styles and used different software or sites. They all seemed to be made by someone very knowledgeable but only one was an actual professional tutorial site.

The first tutorial I watched was by Enix Tutorials. While this was pretty easy to follow I did find the music a little distracting. They showed 2 methods. The first method used Adobe Acrobat. It was simple and straightforward. This is probably the method I would use most often. The 2^nd method they showed used a site called Smallpdf.com This site was also pretty easy to use. Just drag and drop the PDF and choose the level of compression.

The second tutorial was from Tech Related Tips. They used an online program called Ilovepdf.com This method was very simple to use. Simply upload the PDF to this site. Then select the compression level. The narrator did a very good job explaining the process step by step.

The third tutorial was from Learning Excellence. This method showed how to compress a file with Adobe Acrobat. I found the ominous music extremely distracting. The pace was really very slow and this video probably could have been completed in about half the time. I also thought the motions and effects used with the mouse circling each step to be a bit annoying. It could have just show clicking the button.

Out of all of these I would probably use the Enix Tutorial because I would prefer to compress off line. And it was easy to follow. Tech Related Tips also seemed easy to use. I will definitely try this method. The third tutorial from Learning Excellence I would not ever use.

How To Reduce Size PDF file Without Losing Quality – Compress PDF document – YouTube

How to Compress PDF File Size | Reduce Size of PDF File – YouTube

How To Compress PDF File Size Offline – YouTube