Teen Tech

I’ve begun work on my show, well the planning stages and this is what I’ve come up with so far:

STANDARD EPISODE LAYOUT:

• Intro Bumper
• Episode Overview
• Bumper
• Segment 1
• Segment 2 (Beginner Users)
• Bumper / Advertisement
• Sketch
• Segment 3
• Bumper
• Segment 4
• Closing

That’s about it.  I’ve already been looking for sponsors (advertisers), but I need sketch and segment Ideas.  The segments can be about anything and the sketches can be little funny geeky “things.”  I need ideas basically.  I don’t have any sketch ideas as of now, and I am very limited on my segment ideas.  These are what I have so far:

• Securing WiFi (Wireless) networks
• Chiropractic and Computers
• Green Screening with Avid

If you have any ideas or something that you would like to see done, please just post it.

Thanks Everyone

OK,

So, everyone should have a good idea of what phishing is, and if not, I’ll explain it. Phishing is where one person (or group of people) make you think that they are a legitimate enterprise, like a bank. They may ask for financial information and some will actually give it to them falling for thier trick, thus giving up their financial life. So, what is the alert about? This is an email that hit my Inbox 1:37 p.m. today. I didn’t get it until about 10:00 p.m., so it was a little dated, and the website in the email was already shut down and rendered a useless email, except as an example of what not to fall for. It has a few key features that I would like to point out.

Here’s the email, copy and pasted from my Inbox:

Dear Customer,

While running routine checks, we have detected some unusual activity IP:[82.207.70.231-NIGERIA] in your account. For your account security we require to urgent reset your password. Protecting the security of your account and of the network is our primary concern.

ATTENTION : You must reset your account and identify your information immediately within 24h.

To start the process click next link:
www.bankofamerica-office.com

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you and we would like to thank you for your cooperation as we review this matter.

Respectfully,Support Team , Inc.

First off, read this out loud to yourself. Notice the grammatical errors in it? “we require to urgent reset your password.” What kind of sentence is that? Secondly notice the “24h.” Any legitimate place would spell out “hours.” Next is the obvious link that doesn’t work. Next thing (in the first paragraph) is the IP address that they gave. At first glance it looks OK, but if you try to ping it (a computer’s way of seeing if another computer is online), it fails. That address is invalid. Then in the closing, the “Support Team, Inc.” Who are you? Exactly. It was sent from the address “support@office.com,” clearly a fake address. I’m sorry, but if you want my financial information, you’ve got to learn how to write a fake email (I apologize if one of my readers wrote this, but you’ve got to do better than this).

Another big dead giveaway is that I don’t even have a Bank of America account. I use a bank that I’m not going to disclose online anyway. That was my first hint.

In the event of you recieving an email like this one, you should send it to the authorities either at your bank directly or the police. Phishing is a crime especially linked with Identity Theft.

Please protect yourself.

A customer of mine wanted to be able to show her photography on her website, but she wanted “picture frames” on them.  I got to thinking, “how in the world can I do that without a ton of code and time”, well I finished my “Dynamic Picture Frame” code in about half an hour.  Here’s what it does.  Using pre-fashioned picture frame images (the frame itself is made of 8 different images), I simply resized them around the desired picture so that when they are put together, they look like a picture frame.  Cool Huh?.  Here’s the link: http://tech-works.info/picture_frame/ .  That’s a short, but cool post that I plan to use in the very very near future.

Well,

I’ve been busy with school and life in general, but I’ve been toying with a few ideas. Some, I’ve expressed on here before, while others are new. Firstly is my Online TV Show idea (IP-TV). Basically pre-record the episodes, then upload them so that they can be watched. My big inspiration came from a current IP-TV show Hak.5 (hak5.org). It’s awesome. I want to do something like that except target not only the seasoned computer user, but the beginner user. I’m thinking of calling it “The Teen Tech” and just use my blog title and slogan so that I don’t have to come up with anything new. That would cut down on some time. Second thing that I need to work on is a set. I plan on commandeering my dad’s garage (he doesn’t know yet, but he will once he reads this :D) . Then I design my set. I’ve got a basic backdrop design right now, and I may get it printed using my school’s wide-format printer this week or next. Somewhere in there. Here’s what I’ve come up with right now. Note, this is just a rough idea that could change.

When I print this, it will be 36″ x 26.5″, so it will be about the average size of a normal poster.  Then finally I need a camera.  After all of that is done, it’s all downhill from there.

OK, so I understand why schools want to do grading on their computers.  It makes it very easy to transfer information, and it leaves less of a paper trail, but why should the computer be the only method of storing grades.  The teachers used to have a hardcopy and a computer copy, but now they’ve done away with the seperate grade books, which I don’t understand.  What happens if the computers blow up or something?  Having that seperate hard copy is data redundancy which all computer techs know is the key to running a fault tolerant network.  Do you know how many times I’ve been asked by fellow students “Can you hack my grades for me?  I’ll pay you.”  Then I go on to tell them, “Not only is that way over my head, which means I can’t do it, and furthermore, I wouldn’t do it even if I could.”  This doesn’t mean that someone else does not have the tech know how to do this task.  It is unethical and should not even be considered by any honest student.  That is why a hard copy would be a good idea for the schools to go back to, or at least use it as a back up solution.

That’s just my opinion on that.

This is the middle of the second week of school, and I’ve been having some fun during this time, meeting new people, making new friends, working on new projects.

Some stuff has remained the same, such as my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America. Many people know about the Eagle Scout award, but not many people know what actually goes into it. First, there is the merit badge requirement which requires the scout to earn 21 total merit badges, but 13 of those are required, and are usually quite difficult to get, some of these are Communications, Personal Management, Personal Fitness, and Family Life. After all of the merit badges are done, the Eagle Scout candidate must complete a service project that does not benefit the scouts, but benefits the community, school, or other organization. I’ve recently begun the planning for my project. I’m going to build nine flower planters out of decking wood to be used at a city owned park. The key to this project is not that I do it, but I instruct volunteers on how to do it. Its main goal is to show leadership skill. That is on my plate right now, and I plan on getting Eagle within the next month or so.

Another thing that has remained constant is that I like to watch Hak.5. Hak.5 is an online TV show all about hacking computers (hacking in reference to tearing computers and other hardware appart and making them cooler :D), the World Wide Web, Gaming, and other fun computer stuff. For more information on this FREE internet TV show, you can visit www.hak5.org. There, you can find a bunch of cool stuff, watch streaming episodes, and just see what’s up in their world.

School has brought on some new challenges. One of these is PE. I was one of those seniors that waited until my senior year to get my PhysEd credit done. I wish that I had started in my Freshman year because of how beneficial it has already proven to be. I may actually drop Computer Graphics in the second semester to take on another semester of gym. We shall see. Another thing that I’ve been working on this year is my own private math research. I’ve been writing a paper title “The conversion from Base 10 and the discrete usage of Base 12″, wich is all about the Base 12 numbering system and how to convert to it from base 10 (standard decimal). It’s proven to be a difficult paper to write as the math is much more complex than what I’m used to, though with time, I will probably be able to overcome this simple obstacle.

One thing that I’m not too happy with is the Tecumseh Math program. I like the teacher (he used to be an Eagle Scout). Right now we are working on finding instantaneous velocities based on a given function, however the method we are using takes the point immediately before and after the point of interest and finds an average that way, which is slightly inaccurate. My way is to dip into calculus and use derivatives, which I already know how to do without going through this class, but the teacher is barring me from using them, even though I could do my homework in about half the time, but oh well. You can’t win them all.

At Lenawee Intermediate School District’s Vo-Tech center (basically a skills center), I am in the electronics class this year which will have circuit board and microchip programming. We just finished with the orientation for the class today. We’ve been in the class since last Tuesday. It should not take more than a week to cover basic safety procedures, though when it comes to safety, I have a cooler job then the rest. I am one of two people in the class (student) that have my Red Cross First Aid and CPR training, and I am the only person in the class (student) that has my AED (automated external defibrilator) certification, so I’m in charge if there is any sort of emergency in the class if the teacher is not present or incapacitated. That is cool and scary at the same time, because, you begin to wonder, “What if something does go wrong one of these days,” so if something does, I just have to remember the back cover to the “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which clearly states “DON’T PANIC.” I’m all set now.

I’ve been toying with a couple of technology related ideas lately, and they have little to nothing to do with math. My first idea is to do an online TV show, sort of like Hak5, but not like it. I want to do my own stuff, and use my own ideas, and have a green screen because green screens are cool. The only problem right now is a lack of camera, but that should be remedied in a couple of months when I go e-shopping. My second idea is a little more serious, and is already in motion, albeit slow. I want to do an online Free counseling service for troubled teens. I want to recruit teachers and counselors to help, but I want to offer teens, and anybody really, a forum for grievances, whether it is family issues, boyfriend / girlfriend issues, or really anything. I just want to offer an anonymous place for kids to turn to in a time of need. It’s a cool idea that I got while watching the movie “Pay it Forward”. For those of you who do not know the idea behind the Pay It Forward movement, one person goes out and helps three people do something big that they can not do themselves, then those three go out and do the same for three more people, then those nine people go out and help three more people each, which turns to 27 people, and the numbers just grow exponentially with each step. This is my way of starting a Pay it Forward chain.

Well, that’s about all that I’ve got for now, but I’ll be posting again soon.

Take Care Everyone,
Aaron “TeenTech” Liske

Well, I’m trying to ease my way back into programming after my break over the summer. I decided to try something easy, but I didn’t think that it would be as easy as it was. I wanted to try to program an application that could calculate Narcissistic Numbers. Now, how in the world can a number be classified as “Narcissistic?”

A simple google “define:narcissistic” brings this up:
“characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance”

So, How can this apply to numbers? Well, it is a very simple idea. You have a number, let’s say 153. How can this be narcissistic? Let me explain. First you have to split the number up digit by digit, so you end up with 1, 5, and 3. Then there are three (3) digits, so we keep that in mind. Then to test for narcissisticity (i don’t actually know if that’s a word), you take 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3 (the “^” means “to the power of”) which equals 153, which makes this number (153) narcissistic, so it loops back on itself. The three is that you raise all of the digits to is the length of the original number, so lets test another number now that we get the concept. Lets try 243. 2^3 + 4^3 + 3^3 = (8) + (64) + (27) = 99. Since 243 does not equal 99, 243 is not a narcissistic number. Does that make sense?

Well, back to the programming, I wanted to come up with something that could calculate some of these out. I came up with this: http://tech-works.info/narcissistic_numbers.exe. It calculates all of the narcissistic numbers up to 100000000. Due to the limitations of Visual Studio, I can not go any higher, and as it is, it takes a little while to do all of the calculations, but with some optimization, it could get better, but this was a ten minute program. Here is the main function of the entire program in its entirety:

Private Sub Main
ListBox1.Items.Clear()
Dim number As Integer = 0
Dim number1 As String
Dim sum As Integer = 0
Dim length As Integer
While number < 100000000
number1 = number.ToString
length = number1.Length
Dim i As Integer = 0
While i < length
sum = sum + Val(number1.Substring(i, 1)) ^ length
i = i + 1
End While
If number = sum Then
ListBox1.Items.Add(number)
End If
sum = 0
length = 0
number = number + 1
End While
End Sub

(Note:  You need Microsoft’s .NET Framework 2.0 to run the program download)

OK, tomorrow’s the first day of school.  My scedule looks like this:

Math 4
PhysEd
English
US History 3
Seminar
Vo-Tech : Electronics

Vo-Tech is back on my schedule, except with Electronics, which is Micro-Chip and circuit board programming.  I WAS looking forward to it until I got a call from vo-tech.  The call said that I had been referred by my former teacher for an internship in Tecumseh.  It would be a computers job and I have to call the lady back to get the paperwork done and such, but I could have a job during school, get credits for it, and get paid while I’m at it.  Wow.  I tried to get it last year, but the business wasn’t sure, but now they are, and I can do it, assuming I get the paperwork in, so I’m going to have to call vo-tech tomorrow, as today’s labor day, but that’s life.  I honestly can’t wait for school to start.

OK, so, I’ve been back from summer camp for about two weeks, but my mom had a “family” vacation planned for this past week, so I was just going to start blogging again when I got back from vacation. There’s a few things that I am going to discuss this post, such as what’s been going on with me the past 3 months :D.

First off was summer camp. There weren’t that many computers up there at a non-internet enabled camp, but when there were issues or training to be done, they came to me. The commissary director left mid-season with no warning, and he left a highly complex Microsoft Access Database behind that ran the commissary that I had to pick through and figure out how to use to train the new director. I’m also in charge of doing the staff ID badges for next year in the off season. The business manager wanted to get all of the camp computers flash drives to store sensitive data, so I went with her to Staples and found a pretty good deal on a pack of three 1GB drives by PNY, and at the same time I picked up my U3 1GB flash drive for about 25$. What is U3? Well, it is a new technology that allows flash drives to carry around U3 enabled programs (such as Firefox, and Open Office) and use them on any computer that I need to use them on without installing software on that computer. The U3 technology also allows the whole drive to be password protected, which I really like. That’s the extent of the summer camp technology experiences.
(My mom would kill me if she read this next paragraph) Next on the list is the “vacation.” I realize that my mom tried her hardest to make it fun for everyone, but why in the world did he boyfriend have to come along? It wouldn’t have been as bad had I known, but I didn’t find out until about 24 hours before we left. That’s about all that I can say on that specific topic without dropping expletives :). Oh, and contrary to “popular” (my mom’s) belief, the kid’s portions at “Cracker Barrel” are definitely not the same size as the adult’s.
We went to a waterpark a few days ago. Nashville Shores (http://www.nashvilleshores.com). The ride called the “Big Scream” is fun. It’s an elongated half pipe, where you go down on a tube on one side, go almost to the top on the other side, and go back and forth until gravity pulls you to a stop on the bottom. I hold the current record for most rides in one day, 36. That was fun.

Before we left on vacation, I joined PrimeNet in the search for the first 10,000,000 digit prime number. There is a 100,000$ prize for finding the first one, but that’s beside the point. The mere notion of finding all of the primes that http://mersenne.org has found has required millions of CPU hours using parallel processing (see future post). It is estimated that my computer will take about 2 months just to check one 10,000,000 digit number, so I’m not expecting too many miracles.

That’s about it for now. I’m getting tired. I may post more tomorrow.

See everyone later,
Aaron Liske

P.S. I’m getting glasses.