Personal Computer Use Profile

Where to begin....   This may be a little all over the place, but I'm going to try to get most of the ideas down for now.

I use computers for work, school/learning and play, and so does my family: wife, 9yo daughter, 5yo daughter and, eventually, 1yo daughter.  Our home network has 3 devices wired to the router and 6 devices that connect wirelessly.  We use computers and other technology regularly for just about everything.

Focusing more on my computer use, I use the internet extensively but also have a high demand for desktop applications.  I use most of the MS Office suite applications on a daily basis - Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint - and use Access on a semi-regular basis.  I also use for work, school and personal entertainment and learning a variety of learning technologies and multimedia development tools: Adobe eLearning Suite, Camtasia, digital whiteboard software, smaller media development utilities.  I make a point to be aware of and try to use open source or freely available software and like to use a number of graphically rich tools and : Google Earth, GIMP, VLAN player, multiple browsers (Fireworks, IE, Opera, Chrome), Skype, Second Life, video editing and digital storytelling applications (i.e. Windows Moviemaker, Photostory 3) and others.   

My computer use, at the moment, is more dictated by work and school (I'm currently writing my dissertation for a PhD in Educational Psychology at Texas A&M).  Once I'm done with school, I hope to get into digital photography and videography to a much greater extent and start using home computers to record and produce family histories, and I want to involve my kids in that process: interviewing grandparents, uncles, great uncles, etc. 


At home... My wife does a lot of color printing, and we like to have a decent scanner we use to scan family pictures.  We also both use iPhones and like to have extremely mobile computing options.  We even prefer to have mobility even within the four walls of our house - being able to use our computer(s) in any location within the house (we'll *never* buy another desktop machine).  We use a number of devices connected to the network including our home phone (Vonage) and a game console with a NetFlix player.  We do enough with technology that our cable modem/router sites on top of the entertainment center in the living room.  On the home machines, my wife and I also have to monitor, control and support our daughters' computer use.  Their computer skills are as important to us as the rest of their academic skills.  Personally, I intend on sending my kids to middle school with a netbook; the question is, "Will the schools be ready?"


I know computers fairly well and can maintain the hardware and software on a machine and have a number of peripherals that we use at home on a regular basis.  That impacts which computers we buy and our long term needs and plans. 

Viruses, Worms & Passwords - I'm Safe from those Flying Monkeys

Virus Protection.  Are you absolutely certain your personal computer has virus protection software running?  If yes, what virus protection software do you use?
Yes.  At home, I typically make sure we have AVG Free running on our machines.
 
Password Strength.  Go to Microsoft Password Check tool, enter your password to see how strong it is. How strong is your password? 

I tried several of the passwords I use, particularly for more important sites (I don't use the same password for more than one site).  All of them were strong, but only one of them was Best, according to the MS password check tool.

Firewall.  Does your computer have a firewall active?  If your machine is running a firewall, what kind is it?  What's the name of it?
No. We do not run a firewall on our computers.  But we do have a firewall.  What could that be?

Ad/Mal-ware.  Are you absolutely certain your personal computer at home has ad/malware protection software running?  If yes, what software are you using?
I don't have an ad/mal-ware shield running beyond what AVG offers.  However, from time to time, I do run malware bytes and another one (whose name escapes me at the moment). 


Spam.  Do you forward to friends and families strange photos, stories, please for help or security warnings?  If yes, how often do you check to see if the messages you forward are true or valid?I rarely ever forward anything to friends and family that I received as a forward.  It's just simply a waste of bandwidth, but that's just me.  In fact, if I receive forwards from friends/family, I'll often check snopes.com to see if it's true - and it's usually not.  Sometimes I'll forward *that* information back out to everyone that received the forward.   

Phishing.  Do you know what phishing or social engineering is?
Yes.  People fall victim to this every day AT WORK, and their work email accounts get abused by spammers who log into their work email accounts and send spam from it.  Each and every time that happens, our email servers send out roughly 150-200 THOUSAND spam emails, and our entire work domain gets blocked by other email servers (gmail, comcast, att.net etc).  That means anyone with emails at those addresses cannot receive email from our users.

Image.  Do you monitor your online image?  Are you absolutely certain your social network profiles are private?  Do you ever do vanity searches on the internet?
Yes. Yes. Yes.  As my career has advanced, I have a single username I use on most sites; that has become sort of a personal web-based identity that's important to me and what I do.

Data Backup.  Do you have a backup of your data?  If so, where do you keep that backup?
ABSOLUTELY.  There is data on our home machines which I consider 100% irreplaceable - primarily pictures of the family.  We have approximately 50,000 pictures of our kids dating back to 2000 when the oldest daughter was born, and we also have the largest collection of older scanned pictures in the family - some of those pictures data back to 1920's. I typically keep the backup drive locked in a filing cabinet at my office; far away from our home.

My Introduction

My regular blog spaces and online activity may be found at: @cmduke/Twitter or @cmduke/Facebook.


As a general introduction . . .
(Update to the video - which was recorded during a previous semester - the "child on the way" has her first birthday on January 22. It's a GIRL! ;-)



Text version, sort of:
I am an educational technologist and instructional designer with over 15 years of professional experience in education as a(n): K12 classroom teacher, instructional designer, adjunct faculty, director of educational technology, training and technology development.  I am primarily interested in emerging instructional technologies, technology integration/diffusion and the general state of educational technology in all segments of the industry.  I enjoy being a part of the educational technology community through online social networks, the blogging community and presentations at local, regional and national conferences . . .

I spend most of my free time with my family (wife and three daughters); we like to go geocaching, play games and videogames, watch tv and movies, and wrestle (aka "hop on pop"). I enjoy watching just about any sports, particularly baseball and mixed-martial arts; I play fantasy baseball and football with friends; I read alot: online news and blogs and good old fashioned books. And, I'm an avid iPhone user.