The field of network administrator is experience strong job growth. The question we are asked by many students concerns how to get started in the field.
The answer, which has helped hundreds of new candidates find fulfilling jobs is the CompTia certification path.
Benefits of CompTia
CompTia certifications are vendor neutral. A holder of a CompTia certification is qualified to work on any computer. The US government, all state plus local governments, private industry and the non-profit organizations recognize CompTia as an excellent gateway to employment.
CompTia certifications
The first CompTia certification we will discuss is the CompTia A+. This certification is granted when a candidate passes two exams: one for hardware and the other for installation, configuration and security of operating systems. The A+ certification applies to individual computers or workstations. Holders of the A+ install all other types of network service devices, which includes printers and faxes. A+ holders apply for the job titles of computer service technician, help desk specialist or help desk technician. All of these job titles are listed on the main job sites.
The next CompTia certification is the CompTia Network +. The network + states the holder is qualified to install, configure, back up and secure corporate network servers. The Network + is a strong step toward the job title of junior network administrator.
The third CompTia certification we will discuss is the CompTia security +. This certification is a certificate for cyber security. Holders of the Security + know how to secure a network. This course is now a major require for employment in any company who has data to protect.
Our final CompTia certification is the CompTia Linux +. Linux is an open source operating system. Linux has many flavors or versions, which makes it difficult for cyber criminals to attack. In addition to Linux having different flavors, those flavors can be modified, which makes the job of cyber crime very difficult. The CompTia Linux + is required for many companies who use Linux as a background operating system.
#ABCO #Technology teaches each certification listed in this brief article.
Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us at (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
The use of snippets is important for many websites.
Google uses featured snippets to make it easier to connect us to the information we want, but in doing so could they be endangering the basic model the entire web relies on? We get free information and in return, we used to get served a couple of adverts on the site we look at. But without being able to serve those ads, there’s less incentive to create that content.
Featured snippets explained
Featured snippets are intended to make it easier for you to access the information available on a web page by bringing it directly into the search results.
Sometimes when you do a search, you’ll find that there’s a descriptive box at the top of Google’s results. We call this a “featured snippet.”
Here’s an example from the Google blog post where they ‘reintroduce’ them:
So in short it’s taking the text from a page and then featuring it prominently in the search results.
#Google’s shift from connection engine to information engine
#Google has always been a connection engine. However, there appears to be a continuing change in the way in which Google sees itself. The model has always been:
•I enter a search term and Google provides a list of links to content that best answers that search
•I click on a paid or free result
•Google gains money from paid results and advertising on publishers’ sites
•Publishers get paid by the advertising on their sites
Google is increasingly moving towards just showing me the information, lifted directly from the content it indexes. The shift is subtle but it is destroying that model. So now the relationship looks like this;
•I enter a search term and Google provides me the information that best serves the search
•I read the information on Google
Not only is this chain a lot shorter, it also removes the publishers and so Google’s own methods of monetization. The key though is that Google only shows snippets for certain types of results. Results for searches with a clear purchase intent would be naturally less likely to show a snippet but more likely to have PPC ads. Whilst some results do also feature PPC results, in every search I did these were shown above the snippet, with the organic content below.
The potential effects of snippets on websites
When your business relies on traffic from providing specific or niche information then snippets can be devastating. Take the case of Celebrity networth.com as detailed in The Outline. If you want to know what someone famous is worth, you look it up on their site and they give you a number and breakdown of how they reached it. The most important thing is the number, that’s the key information people are looking for.
Back in 2014 Google emailed the owner of the site, Brian Warner, and asked for permission to use the data from the site in the knowledge graph, Brian was not keen…
“I didn’t understand the benefit to us,” he said. “It’s a big ask. Like, ‘hey, let us tap into the most valuable thing that you have, that has taken years to create and we’ve spent literally millions of dollars, and just give it to us for free so we can display it.’ At the end of it, we just said ‘look, we’re not comfortable with this.’”
However when snippets were introduced Google just went ahead and took the information anyway. The information that Brian had said he didn’t want being used by them.
The result was a loss of 65% of traffic year on year and having to lay off staff as the profitability of the site took a nose dive. That’s the very real impact of Google’s change from connecting you to the information to delivering that information right there on the page. The sites that provide that information, the ones that have actually put the time and effort into creating the content, are the ones that lose out.
#Snippets likely won’t affect all websites as badly as in this example, it is just one example. But other studies consistently show featured snippets reduce clicks on other results, in effect cannibalizing traffic. Take this study from ahrefs:
Why did snippets need reintroducing?
Snippets just weren’t that bright, and there were several high profile examples of them failing. Some snippets appeared to have been removed, especially on more controversial topics.
The problem came about through a combination of not understanding the user intent and not being picky about where information was pulled from. Google’s failure to properly understand intent is something they have got in trouble with before, like with the ‘Unprofessional Hair’ problem.
As Google shifts from connecting to content, to connecting to information directly, intent becomes even more important. Of course without the context of the rest of the content we’re even less able to judge the validity of the information shown. Especially when these snippets also serve to provide information for Google Home Assistant. So there is little context available, beyond the name of the site, to evaluate the information against. It’s simply a case of being told an answer to a question as if it’s ‘The Answer’ rather than ‘an answer’.
This also leads to problems such as the case highlighted by Danny Sullivan in his own announcement post for the new feature:
Source: Google blog
Here we have two queries where the intent is the same. The suitability of reptiles as pets. However in a glass half full / half empty kind of way different people phrase this question differently depending on their initial bias. Google has then served each with a snippet that reinforces that bias. In effect two different answers to the same question depending on the searcher’s expectation of the result. For my results at least, Google appears to have put in a speedy fix for this by stopping the snippet showing on one set of results. Replacing reptiles with goats replicated the effect though, so it doesn’t look to be a fix for the wider issue.
This might not appear to be a big problem when it comes to reptiles or goats but things could potentially get out of hand quickly as they roll this out across more queries and cover more topics (for example politics). Searching around at the moment it looks like political or controversial topics are more restricted, especially in terms of the search content.
It’s not just snippets either
It’s not just content publishers that need to watch out. Google appears to be developing their own tools for popular queries and placing these directly in the search results. This is the result I get for a search on ‘internet speed test’:
I guess for the rest of the sites offering a speed checker it’s just tough. This is different from snippets as it’s not using anyone else’s information. But in this example at least Google appears to be creating a tool and then placing it at the top of the search results above competing tools. I personally feel that sets a bit of a dangerous precedent as this could potentially spread with Google creating more tools, in partnership with more companies, so harming the competition. Competition and diversity are good, but people will be less likely to innovate and create new tools if Google is going to just step in when something gets popular and publish their own tool above everyone else’s in the results.
Google has got into trouble before for placing their own services above competitors. In July of 2017 it received a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine from the EU for antitrust violations with their shopping comparison service:
Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google’s comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.
Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results: rival comparison shopping services appear in Google’s search results on the basis of Google’s generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted. Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google’s search results, and others appear even further down. Google’s own comparison shopping service is not subject to Google’s generic search algorithms, including such demotions.
So Google put their own service higher up in the results than competing services and didn’t make their own service subject to the same ranking algorithms as their competitors.
Source: TechCrunch
What will this mean for content?
The trouble with snippets is that the places this might hit hardest are those which invest more in the creation of their content. Or in other words, the content which has higher editorial standards. If you’re a journalist, someone needs to be paying you to write the content, an editor needs to be paid to sub the content, designers and photographers paid for graphics and images.
So the content which stands to lose the most is arguably the most important, whilst the lower quality, recycled, poorly researched and quickly written content, which needs to generate less revenue as it costs so much less to churn out, remains profitable.
This creates a vicious cycle: as there is more low-quality content it therefore captures a greater share of the audience, higher quality content gets more drowned out and so gets less revenue and diminishes even further.
Mobile users want information delivered more quickly and concisely. We have shorter user journeys on mobile with less time on site and a higher bounce rate. Capturing these visitors with properly optimized content is important as mobile is a key part of Google’s revenue as it continues to dominate the mobile search market.
It does also mean, however, that the user is less likely to visit a site which is funded by ads ironically likely served through Google’s own platform. However Google might be less concerned about this depending on how much importance they are placing on their Home Assistant product. The snippets are used by the AI to provide answers for your questions. Ads don’t factor into this and they could perhaps have calculated they stand to gain more from better information here than the loss from fewer ads served on those sites.
#ABCO #Technology teaches a comprehensive course for search engine optimization. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Chances are you’d not have waited for this page to load had it taken a second or two longer.
That’s the best known fact on the Internet today. users expect web pages to load very fast as soon as they click on a hyperlink.
Slow loading web pages can become the leading cause of high bounce rates, low user engagement, lost traffic opportunities, and abandoned sales journeys. Here are some numbers to put things in perspective.
◾47% of users expect a web page to load in less than 2 seconds.
◾40% of online shoppers abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
◾A 1 second delay in page loading can lead to a 16% dip in customer satisfaction, a 7% dip in conversions, and a 11% dip in page views.
What’s more, ecommerce websites associate fast loading with increased revenue, and the reverse is also true.
The calling is clear: your websites need to load super quickly to sustain and nurture audience attention, avoid high bounce rate, and prevent abandoned sales.
If you have a WordPress site, there are a number of easy and effective methods you can begin using today that will significantly increase your site’s loading speed.
Use grids and floats instead of nested tables
It’s surprising how many websites still continue to use nested tables, in spite of the negative impact they have on page loading speeds. Here’s what a nested table code looks like:
………
Such coding adds additional burden on the browser, delaying complete loading of the content. Instead, use non-nested table structure as follows:
……
More importantly, use floats and grids to enhance loading speed. Here is a basic float example:
Basic float example
Sample text
Sample text
Reduce the number of HTTP requests
A web page consists of several components – style sheets, Flash components, images, scripts, and more. To deliver content rich experiences, you need to opt for entire Page Speed Insights Optimization process.
More the number of elements per page, more the number of HTTP requests made for each of these, resulting in longer page loading time durations, which could hurt your conversions. Yahoo estimates that almost 80% of page loading time is accounted for the time spent in downloading the different elements of the page.
Use the HTTP requests checker tool to find out how many requests your page makes.
Luckily, you can reduce HTTP requests without ruining your web design. Here’s how:
◾Combine files: Use scripts and external style sheets (but don’t have more than one script and CSS file each.
◾Image maps: Use contiguous images instead of several image blocks, to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
◾CSS Sprites: Combine multiple images to a sprite, and call the sprite instead of each image. When the sprite contains images from internal pages also, the internal page load times improve, because the content is already downloaded before the user reaches there.
◾Make smaller Javascript blocks inline.
◾Convert images to Base64 coding using an encoder; because it transforms an image into code, the HTTP request is prevented.
Break comments into pages
Your most popular content posts could also be the ones loading the slowest, because of the hundreds of comments on the page. You can’t block comments, because they are conversation starters and link builders for you.
How do you manage, then? WordPress offers a very smart solution – break the comment stream into pages.
In the Dashboard, go to Settings. Under the section Other comment settings, you can tweak the settings for how many comments appear on a page, and which page is displayed beneath the article.
Upgrade to the latest PHP version
Upgrading your website every time a new PHP version is launched can be a bit of a headache. But it’s worth your time and effort. The same scripts could run almost 25-30% faster on newer PHP versions; imagine the kind of website loading time improvements it can bring for you.
PHP Classes published an extensive experimental study, which highlighted that scripts ran significantly faster on PHP 7.1 as compared to previous versions.
Gzip compression
If you use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool for a quick analysis of your web pages, it’s likely you will find advice to use Gzip compression. This compression enables web servers to compress heavy website content elements.
The compression is so effective that it could reduce your page size to 30-40% of its initial size. Dolloped speeds, because of this, could increase to three or four times their previous speed.
For many webmasters, installing a Gzip compression plugin continues to be the best option. W3 Total Cache plugin, apart from all its amazing features, also offers HTTP compression.
Other options are:
◾Ask your web host if it offers Gzip compression.
◾Manually enable Gzip compression via .htaccess (this guide by Kinsta explains how to do so)
Don’t let ad scripts and pop-ups spoil user experience
Chances are you run at least some form of pop-up to optimize conversions. As beneficial as these might be for your website’s monetization strategies, they may also be causing significant damage in terms of higher page loading times.
To take control and strike the perfect balance, you need to know the third-party scripts running on your website, their source, and their impact.
I recommend Pingdom’s Website Speed Test for a thorough analysis of each file and script from a webpage. The tool will tell you which script takes the most time to load.
Gauge the effectiveness of your pop-ups; do away with non-performing pop-up plugins, as they’re only slowing down your page. OptinMonster is one of the most reliable pop-up plugins, helping you optimize conversions without killing speed.
Install a caching plugin
Caching plugins can be a blessing for your website; these plugins create static copies of your webpage content, and instead of making to and fro queries to the database, use the static versions to immediately showcase the web content to users. Since you ordinarily won’t update your web pages daily, caching proves to be very useful for almost all web pages, always.
Among the many caching plugins you can use, WOT Cache Plugin enjoys a lot of trust and popularity. Among its many features are:
◾Combines CSS and Javascript files
◾Leverages the power of page caching and browser caching
◾Utilizes lazy load to massively improve the page load time
◾Helps with database optimization and removes query strings from CSS/Javascript files
◾Saves a lot of bandwidth by reducing the file size of the webpages.
Bonus tip: Seek help from your web hosting service provider
It makes sense to move to a dedicated hosting plan, so that your website gets all the resources it needs to load in a jiffy, always. Ask your web host as to what help it can provide you to improve your website speed.
Most web hosts are willing to offer their technical expertise to help you pluck the low hanging fruits in terms of your website’s speed issues. This, in turn, benefits them, as the load on their servers reduces.
Particularly, ask for their advice on optimizing mobile website speed, because the impact of slow loading is much severe on mobile devices.
Concluding remarks
Every few milliseconds of improvement in your web page’s loading speed could bring tens of percentage points of improvements in its traffic and conversion rates.
Start with these easy and practical tips, most of which will result in almost immediate improvements in page loading speed for your website.
ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for web development. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
If you are a desktop support specialist, network administrator or network engineer, the #CompTIA Security + certification is the one to get.
As #cybercrime continues to increase due to changes in technology, demand for network professionals who have cyber security skills continues to increase.
In 2018 companies are putting their money where their mouth is with respect to #CyberSecurity . Chase bank told investors during their most recent conference call that the bank will be spending one billion on cyber security in 2018.
Bank of America along with hundreds of national banks also are following Chase Bank’s lead in ramping their spending for cyber security.
The certification, which appears to have the greatest value is the CompTIA Security +. This certification provides a strong foundation for cyber security. Holders of this certificate understand how to protect a network, harden devices against cyber-attacks and educate employees about cyber security.
When you hold the CompTIA` Security +, you will be aware of the fact that even your printers and fax machines plugged into your network need to be hardened against cyber-attacks.
#Cybersecurity professionals understand the standards of encryption and the best ways to implement them so important work will get done.
The CompTIA security + can be completed in less than six weeks or in one week if you can stand the fast pace of a boot camp.
#ABCO #Technology offers a complete program for cyber security. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can call us at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304.
Bulletin is a new app published by Google, which allows everyone quickly to create and post news stories which will appear both in the app and on the web…
“Bulletin stories are public and easy to discover: on Google search, through social networks, or via links sent by email and messaging apps” Source: Google Bulletin App
Bulletin is currently on trial in two locations in the US: Nashville, TN and Oakland, CA.
Google has termed this new type of news ‘Hyperlocal’ and it’s aimed at people being able to create posts quickly about what they encounter in their immediate area.
Why?
Between Facebook and Google local news has truly suffered. Print media in general has experienced large financial losses and this has been very severe for smaller local news media outlets as well. Online players in this space such as The Gothamist have also collapsed leaving a vacuum in the area.
The bigger question here should really be why Google would want to fill that space. Call me a cynic but I think it’s unlikely that it’s due to some altruistic need on Google’s part to fill the space which it helped to destroy.
If this was the case, if Google was seeking to help replenish local news, then it could instead promote local news sources more heavily over national ones, as Facebook has recently announced it will be doing. Instead Google has seen an opportunity, reinforced by the rise of other locally focused sites such as NextDoor.com.
nextdoor.com
Google has been part of the undoing of a media format and there is now the opportunity to step in and fill that void. But that still creates the question…
Why should Google care about local news at all?
The more personalized the advertising, the more likely we are to respond to it. This includes the source of the advert. You’re more likely to listen to the advice of a friend about their experience with a company than the information on the company blog. This goes for local news ads as well.
According to Local Media Works local media is not only the most trusted source of information but also the best at driving customer interaction. In other words ads served on local content are more effective.
It combines personalization (adverts tailored to you) and contextualization (ads shown at the right time) for incredibly effective advertising. It also, importantly, gives Google an additional data collection point.
Each story you post provides key information beyond just geo-targeting. For example, post a story which shows an event at your local pet store and you might start getting shown ads for dog food.
Even without posting a story, but by just interacting with the content, this provides additional data, showing businesses and geographic areas you’re interested in without Google ever needing to record your physical visit to those places.
What’s the harm?
Some existing sites which specialize in the ‘hyperlocal’ have already encountered issues in how different sections of the same community interact. For example Nextdoor.com has had problems with neighbors ‘racially profiling’ people within their own communities.
It takes more than geography to make a community and there are often existing divisions within a small or ‘local’ area. This could be exasperated by the ‘echo chamber’ problem we already see across search and social platforms. Through personalization of content we don’t see outside of our own world view. In other words the content we see serves only to reinforce rather than challenge our beliefs.
Picking up your local newspaper or reading their stories online is more likely to show you information from across the full demographic of your community. In the case of hyper localization of online content, however, it may serve only to provide us with information from a subsection of our community rather than representing its full diversity.
Editorial standards and fake news
We also need to stop pretending that everyday people are as good of a source for information as trained journalists. Bulletin celebrates the quickness and ease of posting on its platform. It does not, from what I read in the promotional material, mention editorial guidelines or validity of content. Any journalist with a news organization has to adhere to editorial standards, research what they are writing and will at least attempt to convey news with some depth.
If Google chooses to show Bulletin stories in the same section as they show other news stories, – and I’m not sure where else it would show them – then it’s promoting them to the same level as actual editorial content without any of the checks and measures.
My final thoughts on this
I don’t think Google has deliberately set out to replace local news, I certainly don’t think they intended to harm the industry. However it would appear that local news is in decline and there is a gap in the market for Google to step into with Bulletin. The way it’s done this is typically clever, moving yet more content off proprietary sites which can show advertising or generate revenue in whatever way they darn well like, right on to a platform owned and controlled by Google (ahem AMP, cough cough).
Google has also embraced the idea that we can all be part of the news. We can all share events locally and connect with each other through our local postings. After the failure of Google Plus I’m not sure how far the ‘connecting’ side of things will go but we’ll have to wait and see on that one.
On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but the ramifications for local news sites could be severe, especially if Google prioritizes content from its own service over that of other providers. It’s also creating further problems with placing equal or even more weight on unverified and unchecked content compared to that of a reputable publisher.
This could end up as little more than another version of Yell, mostly used only by businesses to promote events, or it could really take off like a localized version of Twitter with people in masse connecting and sharing within their communities. The crucial thing is that it doesn’t become a replacement for all local news.
#ABCO #Technology teaches a course for web development, which includes social media strategies. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
This article contains a brief list of nine computer maintenance tips, which will make you a valued employee at your place of work.
If you are able to perform some computer maintenance on your own, you will save both money and time.
This blog post will contain some maintenance tips, which you can perform by yourself, which will help you keep your computer running smoothly.
1 First tip make sure your computer is plugged in, connections connected and your monitor is turned on.
2 Computers often build up dust on the inside. Remove dust from your PC by using compressed air. compressed air removes dust. Perform this operation approximately every 90 days unless you are in a high dust environment. If you are in a polluted environment, then use compressed air every 30 days.
3 The disk defragmenter arranges your files in logical order. It will run automatically in Windows 7 if set up. Arranging your files in logical order will speed up your computer. The disk defrag command will defrag files up to 64MB.
If you want to defrag or arrange larger files, use this command defrag c: -w. This command will defrag all of the files in your hard drive.
4 If you want to check the condition of your hard disk, use the command, Chkdsk. This command will tell you if your disk has any errors or bad tracks.
If you want a command to fix these bad tracks and errors, use the command chkdskg/f. This command will repair your disk in many instances.
If you are using Linux, use fsck.
5 It is a good practice to delete temporary files. Deleting these files will save disk space.
6 Windows disk clean up utility will delete temporary files. Deleting these files will free up disk space, which will also increase the speed of your computer.
7 In windows you have a backup and restore command where you can restore your computer to a time when it functioned without errors.
8 It is a good practice to back up to an external hard drive. Hard drives are constantly getting cheaper. Use them, they will save you time and money.
9 When backing up files, use archive attributes, this will make it easier to find these files if you need them. You simply need to select file types to be backed up and the location where you want them to be stored.
#ABCO #Technology teaches comprehensive programs for network administration and #CyberSecurity . Possessing the knowledge to fix, maintain, install and protect networks is vital in the economy of the twenty-first century. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. Call today at: (310) 216-3067
Email all questions to info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Get started by learning computers and networks today!
Block chain technology is talked about everywhere in the media from local news broadcasts to bfinancial network speculation relating to the future price of bitcoin. If you ask most people about this technology, they can’t define block chain in one sentence.
Block Chain is simply nothing more than shared data stored on multiple computers, which uses encryption. When we talk about encryption, we are discussing scrambeling and descrambling data for the purposes of achieving privacy.
The basic use of encryption dates back to the mid 1980s when the first encryption standards were formed.
Encryption evolved with shared key or symmetric encryption where both parties used the same key to descramble the data. Semetric encryption was fast, easy to use, but it was cracked by hackers. Next came asymmetric key encryption where each party had a different key. This was known as a set of public and private keys. Asemetric encryption was slower than its brother semetric, but it was more difficult for hackers. The public key was assigned to the sender and the private key went to the receiver.
From asymmetric came the use of a third party or introducing a third key and party into the mix.
The third key developed into the multiple computer block chain where data is shared on a large number of computers or a concept of shared trust. In addition to simply sharing data, the algorithms or operations had to be complicated to make them difficult to attack.
Naturally bitcoin became an outgrowth of this technology. The price of bitcoin has made wild swings ranging between 20 to 60% in one week.
However, bitcoin is only one of 1376 different crypto currencies.
The jobs and money in this field will come from other uses of the technology. For example Kodak is using block chain to license images for photographers. IBM is developing uses for block chain to keep track of medical records. Oracle is developing a block chain solution for databases, which must be kept very secure. Microsoft along with other fortune 500 companies are researching uses of block chain technology.
The new uses of block chain will require anyone who works in the networking field to have a solid understanding of encryption, how encryption standards operate and the fastest solutions for descrambling the data. Bitcoin for example takes almost seven minutes to complete a financial transaction. A person making the same transaction using regular currency can complete a financial exchange in milliseconds.
Although encryption is getting a lot of attention, it’s still slow when the data needs to be converted back into a readable form. Research will continue and better solutions will be developed. It is the job of the cyber security professional to determine the best ways to use block chain.
#ABCO #Technology teaches a comprehensive class for cyber security. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
One of the biggest challenges parents face in 2018 is the fact that jobs for millennials or teenagers are very hard to find.
The reasons are simple.
First of all the #US is moving toward a #skills oriented economy and teenagers or millennials haven’t had the opportunity to train for a skilled job.
Second the skills based economy with political pressure is artificially forcing wages higher than the market will bear. The higher wages forces teenagers out of the conventional restaurant jobs, which they have held for the past 100 years.
The solution to this challenge is to train your son or daughter to ensure they have an employable skill early in life.
One skill, which has high demand and job growth is computer repair. When we talk about computers, we are talking about laptops, iPhones and iPads. All of the mentioned devices will breakdown. The device itself could malfunction or simply be dropped.
A training course and certification, which trains millennials to compete in the computer repair field is the #CompTia A+. Training for the CompTia A+ or a course in computer repair can be accomplished in approximately 78 hours.
After the training is completed, the candidate passes two exams to obtain the CompTia A+ certification. These exams are: 901 for hardware, which covers the building of a computer and 902, which covers all of the operating systems, which can be installed on that computer. The CompTia A+ also covers setting up a small network, installation of printers and installation of online faxes.
Employers are looking for young people who can fix computers. Jobs come in many forms. Websites including Indeed and Glass door have many listings for young candidates with the A+ computer repair certification.
#ABCO #Technology teaches courses in networking and cyber security. Our school is ideal for the teenager who wants an employable skill. The CompTia A+ is a major part of this training. Call our campus between 9 Am and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email all questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
The design of a company’s website plays an important function in attracting prospects and customers, generating leads, and potentially creating satisfaction.
Generally speaking, a website has between 15 to 30 seconds to convey a favorable impression about a company, as well as the products and services offered, to online visitors; therefore, paying attention to the site’s design is a key factor in how well it performs.
Design Basics
To some extent, a website’s design will be influenced by a company’s industry and culture. As an example, a website for a law or accounting firm will likely have a more serious design approach than a party planner or an ice cream parlor.
An effective website blends design, text, images, and video to provide a good overview of a company and what it offers. A website’s images can highlight both team members and the workplace, as well as provide a personal touch that helps differentiate a company from its competitors.
To avoid increasing a website’s startup or “load time,” it’s a good idea to optimize images for online display. Because the screen resolution is lower than print, using a “save for web” command in a photo-editing program reduces the “density” of the image so it will load more rapidly. There are also many plugins available for WordPress-designed sites that will aid in optimizing load time for pages and images.
It’s also helpful to consider readability as a site’s design is prepared. Dark text on a light background, for instance, is easier to read. It’s also an excellent idea to consider the target market’s age — if your target market skews over 40, making text easy for on-screen reading will help improve your site’s usability for visitors. Font type is also a key factor in the design of a website. Fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, or Georgia are all easy-to-read fonts that can be read clearly through a variety of browser types.
Improving Search Results
A website’s content is a critical factor in how the site is indexed by search engines. Thus, it is important to make sure that headlines and content relate to products and services offered.
Consider what keywords or phrases customers are likely to use, as they search for offerings that a company specializes in, and include those phrases in page titles and headlines. Avoid repeating keywords over and over, since search engines may penalize for “keyword stuffing;” yet make sure that the site describes the company and what it does, utilizing the terms necessary to find the website online.
Prepare for Scanners
Since most visitors scan a site quickly (think 15 seconds), instead of reading it carefully, it’s helpful to break up text with headlines, bulleted lists, and images. Keeping sentences and paragraphs short is another helpful way to improve the appearance and readability of a website. Important elements and the company’s contact information should appear “above the fold,” which is the portion of the screen visitors can see without scrolling down. Most people won’t bother to look for information that’s not directly in front of them.
Navigation Drives Results
While most people think of how a site looks, good design also includes navigation menus that are straightforward and easy to understand. Therefore, a web designer should make it as easy as possible for visitors to find their way around the site, since confused visitors will likely hit the back button instead of exploring a website further.
Some navigation tips:
•Place a company brand/logo in the upper left corner of every page, and make that logo a clickable link to the home page.
•Keep navigation menu items to a minimum. Professional web designers suggest using seven items or less on a navigation menu.
•The navigation menu should use descriptive titles. Summarize what a user will find on the specific page. Rather than have a menu item called “Team,” consider expanding it to “Meet Our Team.”
•Keep design usability in mind. A user should never have to go more than three levels deep (or three clicks away) from the homepage to find information.
Enlisting the Help of a Professional
Depending on goals for the website, enlisting help from a professional web designer could be a profitable investment in making the website as appealing and functional as possible. If you’re technically inclined, or wish to tackle the site’s appearance yourself, most web hosting companies offer a wide range of website templates designed for small businesses. Additionally many website building companies offer templates for little to no cost. WordPress and Wix are just two of the well-known companies that offer simple solutions for web design that don’t cost a fortune or require a programmer to code.
When working with a professional, it’s important to ask if you’ll have the ability to update or add content yourself (and how easy those updates will be to perform). If you have to rely on the web designer for future changes, additional costs will be incurred and possibly delays in having the website updated. Instead, ask the designer to include content management features so you or your colleagues will be able to update the site yourselves.
If you prefer to do it yourself with a design template, customize the images or graphics to give the site a more personal look and feel that better matches your company and its personality.
Either way, remember that creating a website is not a one-time project. You’ll have to plan for frequent updates as you develop more content and change your design periodically to prevent the site from appearing out of date.
#ABCO #Technology teaches a comprehensive program for web design. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
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good web design = success. Become a successful web design professional today! #Website
Shares of Eastman Kodak stock were soaring Tuesday after the company announced a new #cryptocurrency initiative.
The company unveiled a licensing partnership with Wenn Digital to launch an image rights management platform called KODAKOne and a photo-centric crypto currency called #KODAK Coin.
The stock price opened at $3.10 a share Tuesday and rose as high as $7.65 after the announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. When the stock market closed at 4 p.m., shares were trading at $6.80.
In a release, the company said the KODAKOne platform will be an encrypted, digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archival work that they can then license for use.
The company describes KODAK Coin as “a new economy for photography,” which will allow photographers to receive payment for licensing their work immediately upon sale, sell their work confidently on a secure block chain platform.
The system will be open to both professional and amateur photographers.
Initial reactions from financial analysts were mixed.
CBS Marketwatch said Kodak was “boarding the block chain bandwagon,” hoping to capitalize on the crypto currency trend to boost its stock price.
Bloomberg said, “The move comes as investors snap up virtually any asset related to digital coins or the block chain technology that underpins them — no matter how tenuous the tie.”
The Financial Times was more blunt in its criticism, calling it “Kodak’s last desperate bid for relevance
Encryption, which has been a part of information technology for 25 years is now experiencing an expansion of its use. Bitcoin has been the number one crypto currency out of 1375 different encrypted currency chains. Now that Kodak has entered this market we have 1376. This writer believes Kodak’s entry will gain in popularity because it is focused upon a specific industry, which is photography. Could Kodak’s new currency be the beginning of a new trend, where different services have their own currency? This appears to be the new reality.
#ABCO #Technology teaches classes in encryption in our cyber security program. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. Call today at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Encryption is opening up numerous opportunity. Join #CyberSecurity today to learn more.
