Tag Archives: technology

Supervising Children’s Online Activities

That children are tech-savvy these days,there is no doubt about it.

Why, even my children who are in early grades have an account (one account for both of them) in a popular social networking site. They use it primarily to play the games there.

When children are doing these, parents should be nearby to supervise their accounts. It is unwise to let them do unsupervised online activities using a laptop computer.

Even  if parents lecture about not divulging private information like home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, still parental guidance is recommended (yes, I sound like a tv ad but this is very important).

Oh wait, before I forget, even parents or adults need some supervision too when it comes to supervising their privacy settings in these SNS.

Have you checked your privacy settings lately?

How to Avoid Being Phished

Unbeknownst to most people, the way they deal with their online log-ins and passwords makes them victims of phishing. Phishing?

Phishing is a way personal and sensitive information are stolen. These do not just limit itself to e-mail log-ins but to credit card details too and accounts made available online. This is online theft, in other words.

It pays to have a know-how on identity theft protection.

There are password-stealing malwares lurking at every corner in the world wide web waiting for opportunities to steal these information.

How should you avoid being phished?

  • Avoid using your birthdate or Social security number as your password.
  • Avoid using letters and/or numbers in sequence
  • Check the url of a site first before you click on it. For example, an email gives you notification about your paypal account but has a url that is not paypal’s site. Or, if you have an email stating you have purchased something but did not do so or an unclaimed package but did not send anything? Do NOT click on the links there.
  • Check the security settings of social networking sites where you have accounts for these have third party applications that fish information you put.
  • Should you find the need to use an internet cafe, be sure to clear the cache or clear history before you leave the workstation.

Being careful with online activity is something one should take note of.

And please, change your passwords every now and then and avoid being predictable 🙂

Airline Promo Fail

Some friends took advantage of a promo from a local airline company a few days ago. Instead of surprising their lived ones with the flight confirmation where they were supposed to have paid for a song,  they were surprised that their credit cards were charged several time due to errors. Que horror!

Uh-oh, I hope this is not a way to have floating money in the company’s profile because refund is said to happen within 60 – 90 days. Ugh.

With the many destinations to choose from, mainly top Asian (and Philippine) tourist spots (no, no orlando vacations being offered) it IS a great idea to offer low rates for these travels.

But come on, to be charged three or two times for a system error? I may not be an IT expert but something is just not right.

What? Did I hear a lot will file complaints? They should.

Organizational Leadership Program

I met my brother last weekend. It was our first time to see his cute daughter Amara (my first niece!).

Brother went here to accompany his wife and daughter who will have a short vacation. Brother also planned to enroll for the second semester for his Master’s.

We got to talking about the alternative of enrolling in an online program to save on fare and time travel. If road conditions prove to be not good, he runs the risk of not being able to go to school.

He majored in Industrial Psychology. I can’t particularly remember what he is majoring in right now but during our talk, we got to discuss the merits of enrolling in a program that about organizational leadership.

He was at first not sure if there are online programs being offered for that course so we were surprised when chanced upon an online Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership when we were scouring the web for programs like these.

Now, if only he can afford it, I know he will enroll in this program because it offers a lot of good topics like problem solving skills, strategic planning, team building and instituting change within an organization.

My brother was particularly interested in organizational communication and psychology of motivation.

If I may say so, students these days are too busy with mundane tasks (social media for one) that they need a lot of motivation to keep focus on their studies. Oh well, maybe its just me.

Protection

Everyone with a computer and net connection should have one. And I am talking about antivirus software.

This is especially handy for us who have children who go online. Who knows what lurks behind those online gaming sites that they so love to visit and play games with.

So are your gadgets protected from worms and malicious programs? I hope so.

Oh, by the way, I have written another kind of protection in this post here.