Trying to Catch Up and Remembering our Veterans.

I have been struggling to catch up. I am starting to catch up but still feel very behind in class. I am going to use the next few days off I have to catch up completely in LabSim and hopefully take my MO-200 next class. It has been hard since my work has now started PEAK season, the preparations for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Vacation Time Off and Personal Leave of Absences have been blocked off to prepare for the sheer volume of returns we are expecting in January. Mandatory Extra Time has been nonstop for the last 3 weeks. Reverse Logistics sites and Fulfillment Sites peak seasons are opposite to each other but the blocks start the same time. I have been working 50 hours the last few weeks and it has been making catching up harder due to the increase of work hours.

For the last 3 weeks, I have been listening to songs lately that are about remembering and honoring our military veterans that have fallen, retired, and currently serving. I am doing this because, I made a promise to my father to listen to these songs, and that majority of my whole family are Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine veterans. My great grandfather from Ireland also served in WWII  in the Royal Air Force. Also seeing and hearing about the sacrifices they have made for the United States and in WWII has been my greatest motivator to catch up and pass all of my classes.

Thank you to all that have served this country, and all of you are in my prayers.

5.6 Formulas

Excel was founded for data management and bookkeeping. And its duty was to perform calculations data in cells, by using formulas. the formulas help calculate and keep track of rates. At my job I have to use formulas they created to keep track and update rates of employees by using hourly formulas to keep the data up to date. Microsoft Access is a more powerful and in-depth variation of Excel, which is stronger for managing data.

To divert, I have been studying nonstop for my Network + Class Mid-Term I have been averaging an 87.4% in the class. I bombed my Linguistic Anthropology Midterm, but I will make a comeback in this class and in IS101. I will finish strong and improve my grades, to all of my classes above a B.

The Update

To begin with. I will share the song my grandfather's band was playing when Elvis walked in on their set. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZa_P6W2XlM 

I have a more in-depth update. I am getting back into the groove and will catch up in IS101. I lost track a bit due to struggles but will do better overall. As I mentioned before I have changed my Major for the following semesters to the Associate of Applied Science - Fire Technology Management. It is a very demanding major. I learned more about the requirements, and I will start my Major off with taking EMS - 108B (Basic EMT), there are 3 parts to this class. EMS - 108B Lab Class, EMS - 108B Lecture Class, and EMS - 150B Clinical Ride Along with an Ambulance Agency. I will also be taking COM - 101 which will supplement my communications requirement for the degree. I will take FT - 101 as well which are the Principles of Emergency Services. FT - 101 teaches you the history and culture of the fire service, along with defining the role of national, state, and local support organizations in fire and emergency services. I would also be able to develop positive communication and listening skills in human behavior and relationships.

4.7 Inserting Illustrations and Other Elements

Before I get into 4.7. I had an incident at work, and it made me realize I don't think IT is for me. I will tough out this semester and I changed my Major to Fire Technology Management. I will work on myself, by getting fit and healthy again, then by completing the Basic EMT Class and Clinical and then applying for the Las Vegas Fire Academy, and hope I make it through it. The incident made me realize I should go out of my way and help the community.

Before taking this class, I did not know that in Word when you format the images that it had to be a GIF, PNG, or WMF because it supports transparency. This chapter also expanded my understanding on the proper ways to format using Word Illustrations, and I will utilize different fonts to find different symbols, by first selecting Symbols and then clicking on more Symbols then change the font. I honestly never used symbols before taking this class, I will find ways to implement using symbols more often in everyday situations. 

I honestly might see myself falling back to IT in the future but for now I don't think it's my true calling yet.

2.8.8 IT Career Facts

I know that 2.8.8 covers careers in IT such as Network Architect, Database Administrator, Programmer, Support Specialist, and Security Analyst, but there are countless other IT Field careers in the industry. I am going to cover some more IT Careers. 

For instance, there are Penetration Testers. There are two common types of penetration testers.

Red Team Testers are the ones who take an offensive approach on attacking systems. 

When you’re part of a red team, you’re tasked with thinking like a hacker in order to breach an organization’s security. You are typically hired by the company CEO to test their IT Team. Some common tasks completed by Red Teams are Social Engineering, Penetration Testing, Interception Communication, Card Cloning, and Making suggestions for the Blue Team to improve security.

Blue Team Testers are the defense against the Red Teams attacks. They take a defensive approach.

As a blue team member, it’s your job to analyze the current security posture of your organization and take measures to address flaws and vulnerabilities. Playing for the blue team also means monitoring for breaches and responding to them when they do occur. Some of these tasks include Digital Footprint Analysis, DNS Audits, Installing and configuring firewalls and endpoint security software, Monitoring Network Activity, and Using least-privilege Access.

Red Team vs. Blue Team in Cybersecurity | Coursera

Another career in IT is an MLOPs Engineer. They combine machine learning, data science and DevOps to maintain and deploy high-quality machine learning models in production.

1.5.7 Cyber Warfare

Cyber Warfare. Hundreds of Cyber Security Industry Professionals say the next World War would be 1 of 2 possible wars, either Nuclear War or more likely Cyber War, the goal of Cyber Warfare is to cripple an opposing nation's Computer Networks and or Electrical Grid. Cyber Warfare is not always necessarily a term just for nation to nation war but also any ordinary Joe if they have programming experience and Penetration Testing experience they could easily get into a nation's or Industry Company's files for either black mail or to bring a country to a complete stand still. The most common way Cyber Warfare happens is a Distributed Denial of Service Attacks also commonly known as (DDoS). It is a process where a hacker sends hundreds of thousands of bot requests which floods the webpage to the point the website crashes. (Personal recollection and tandofline.com source)

A famous modern Cyber Warfare attack was a STUXNET worm which disrupted Iran's nuclear enrichment in 2010. Industry professionals after this stated, "The Era of Cyber Warfare has now really begun". In 2010. (ieeexplore.ieee.org source) STUXNET has become so sophisticated to the point it searches its targets only by looking for PLCs made by Siemens. PLCs are like the BIOs in computers. PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller) They are the interface between a program and machines such as a robotic arm which tells it what to do on an automated level. STUXNET Particularly looks for Seimens' WinCC/PCS 7 SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisitions) Software that runs on the PLC. STUXNET main goal is to take over control physical critical infrastructure. It waits for a specific command line from the PLC when it sees this command line it strikes to attempt to take control.

A few days ago, a 17-year-old kid not even graduated yet hacked into Rockstar Games and leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 and spoiled parts of the game that Rockstar has spent nearly 4 years in development. They found who hacked them and had them arrested. He also might be responsible for the recent Uber Hacks. Allegedly, he is part of a hacking group called "Laspus$". They allegedly target high profile digital intrusions in giant companies. The Grand Theft Auto 6 Leak is the largest video game leak in history. It contained 90 Video Files of early development footage. (For a pre-alpha build of a game in 2019 it looks way better than Grand Theft Auto 5 pre-alpha build). (kotaku.com source)

Sources:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5634434

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2013.816122

https://kotaku.com/gta-6-vi-hack-leaker-arrested-teenager-london-laspsus-1849573250

Music I Listen To

Today I would like to share the artists and songs I have been listening to as of late. 

When I study, I tend to listen to Classical and Jazz music literature because personally it makes my brain think more. One album I have been listening to lately is an album titled Yoshiki Classical by: Yoshiki This is my favorite modern classical album written and composed in the 2010's. My 2 favorite songs in the album are Seize the Light and Say Anything. His music has so much emotion poured into each song, even his classical album even though there are no vocal lyrics. I feel like his classical album causes you to feel even more stronger emotions than his J-Rock band X-Japan even though all of his music is in my opinion one of the best modern Japanese musicians of all time.

Seize the Light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xofN-Pg8qI

Say Anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh3895szio4

Another album I have been listening to lately has been Sinatra at the Sands by: Frank Sinatra This is my favorite Album written and composed by Frank Sinatra. My favorite song in this album is Come Fly with Me. These albums help me focus and calm my anxiety when I am worried about studying. 

Come Fly with Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftTxmcLSfY

I also have been listening to a lot of Thai Music on my free time to help expose myself to the Thai Language even more. I am able to make inferences about what is being sung and when my wife speaks Thai. I now know when she gossips about me.😅 I have been listening to the Thai band Clash I have been listening to their albums multiple times. The way the lead singer shows and puts out so much emotion into each song makes you feel varying emotions even when you don't understand the language. Another Thai band I have been listening to is Tilly Birds. They are a modern Alternative Thai band. They target their music to high school students and young adults. 

Tilly Birds, ถ้าเราเจอกันอีก (Until Then): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwvv71slEYc

Clash, เธอจะอยู่กับฉันตลอดไป (You'll Be With Me Forever): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEPdo0IZkBY 

Thank you, guys, for taking your time to read this post this time.

Fall Semester Week 2

First off, I hope everyone's week went well so far, if not I hope y'all feel better and today will be a new day. If needed take a step back and breath and get your composure back. Today will be about the workload for my semester.

The courses I am taking this semester are CIT-112B Network+, Anth-106 Introduction to Anthropological Linguistics, Eng-101, and of course IS-101. So far, I have noticed CIT-112B and IS-101 will be a struggle to find a cadence balance these 2 classes based on the amount of studying and course material for these classes. I have already had 4 Chapter Exams, (Closed Book, 30 Questions each), and a 2.5 Hour Lab for my CIT-112B class with in the first 5 days. I already woke up Sunday morning with my textbook on my head😅. After taking 4 years off before coming back to school I have lost my time management for classes, but I will find my cadence again soon. With IS101 you can already see in the Canvas we have a hill to climb as well. With my Eng-101 Class and Anth-106 Class the amount of class work does not even add up to half of IS-101 and CIT-112B course work and studying.

Introduction

How is everyone doing today? My name is Connor. I graduated high school in 2018, I started college in Fall 2019, but I ended up dropping out due to personal reasons. I am now back to improve my education and earn my degree. I am majoring in Cyber Security with a focus of Network Security. I am pursuing this degree because, I am passionate about computers, and I have always wanted to work on them professionally.

A little bit about myself, I work at Amazon in the largest Return Center in North America. I am a Process Assistant; this is an equivalent to a team lead in other companies. (Entry-Level leadership/management position). I am hoping to move up in Amazon into Cyber Security Roles, upon graduating. I was born in Houston, Texas, but was raised and lived all of my life in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My hobbies. I am a musician. I play clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, and a little bit of piano. I play video games, listen to music from across all genres including Thai Music, Jazz, Rock, Country, Korean Music, Japanese Music just to name a few genres.