News

US Based computer programmer demand is exploding.  A key development in this area resulted from Google’s announcement of Stadia, Microsoft moving the majority of its games to the cloud and other companies including Electronic Arts are also planning such moves. If you are learning about this information for the first time, you might want to know the reason for the change?

The answer is right directly in front of us.  The fact that networks are moving to 5G means that the delay, which is now experienced on 4G or LTE systems will be gone.  Last week a major surgery was performed using 5G technology.

The fact that delay or latency as technicians prefer to call it has allowed the playing of games or other instantaneous activities to be performed directly results from new 5G technology. In the past these activities only were conducted through a type of console.  Now with 5G the console will disappear.

Since we will no longer have consoles, we will have more video games and these games will be able to go online at a faster rate.  More games mean more programmers.  The US Department of labor projects that jobs involving computer programmers will grow 25% faster than the normal growth for other occupations.

The programs, which will lead this movement, are: Java, Python, C++ and all programs that work with Microsoft systems.

You can join this exciting occupation by contacting ABCO Technology.  Call our campus today at: (310) 216-3067 between 9 A. M and 6 P. M. Monday through Friday.

Email all questions to: cpascal@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for federal student funding.

Train for your career today.

1. What name do you use to talk about the rate of electrons flowing past a point in a circuit in one second? Ampere or Amps. The physics books tell us that 1.2 trillion electrons flowing past that circuit point in one second is equal to one Amp.
2. What is the calculation used to determine how much power is being consumed in a DC circuit?
   Volts * Amps = Watts. The watt is the unit of power. This question comes directly from Ohm’s law.  This calculation only applies to DC circuits.  All computers both home and laptop actually run on DC power.  A power supply contained inside your computer converts the household AC to direct current.  Direct current doesn’t fluctuate and it is much easier to lower voltage and current to power solid state components.
3. What is the difference in electrical power supplied to houses in the USA compared to the electrical power in Europe? Power is supplied at 110 – 120 volts @ 60 Hz in the US and 220-240 volts @ 50 Hz in Europe.
4. What is one main difference between AC and DC? AC is alternating current; it moves in one direction and then reverses its direction, over and over again. Electric technicians refer to this condition as the AC cycle. The alternating current stream is not steady; it’s always fluctuating a little more or a little less as current changes direction. The average AC current is known as RMS or root mien square voltage. DC is current flowing in one direction.  Therefore DC is a steady stream of current. Our sensitive electronics need a steady stream of current. Solid state components such as chips and integrated circuits will not tolerate any form of fluctuating current.  Solid state components require low amounts of steady current and voltage. 5 What does it mean when a power supply uses multiple rails? It means it has separate circuitry and each is its own power source.

• Getting and using a 900 Watt power supply means that when you are using the computer, you will be using 900 Watts, True or False? False! You will only be using the power you need to run the computer. If your PSU can supply more power, it just simply means it’s available up to 900 watts if your computer needs it, but it’s not using all of that available wattage.
• It’s ok to plug a 110 volt power supply into an outlet that provides 220 volts, True or False? False, if that power supply receives more current or voltage than its expecting then it will smoke/burn, break!

Hopefully, you will have a fuse, ground fault interrupter or circuit breaker in the line to protect the circuit against such stupidity. If not, I’ll see you in class.

If you want to comment on this Blog, ask a question, or suggest further topics, email our school at:

cpascal@abcotechnology.edu

To know More: Contact ABCO Technology

Topic Motherboards
A+ question1:

Are the connectors the same or different when comparing different sized motherboards?
All motherboard connectors are standardized, so it does not matter what the size of the motherboard is, they will all have the same type of connectors on them. It’s just a matter of how many connectors each motherboard is designed to handle.

A+ question 2
Airflow is not considered to be one factor of how a motherboard and its components are laid out? True or False?
Answer = False
False, airflow is extremely important inside of a computer’s case. The components heat up as you use the computer and too much heat can damage the components. Remember solid state components have low heat tolerance. You must have some method to cool down the solid state parts. One way is to move air into the case, across the components and out of the case on the other side. Typically, fans in front of the case move air in and fans in the back of the case move air out.

New York is the first state to legalize the monitoring of social media by insurance companies. What does this mean to your bottom line?
Put simply, what you post on social media will cost you money in terms of your life insurance, health insurance and even auto premiums. Insurance companies need to save money, therefore they will use your lifestyle against you, that is if you make it public.

New York’s Department of Financial Services (NYFS) has
released new guidelines
that will allow life insurance companies to use data from customers’ social media posts to determine their premiums, and experts say that these rules could
potentially extend beyond New York’s borders.

The new guidelines suggest that companies can use data from other “non-traditional” sources as well, though insurers will have to prove the information
Does not unfairly discriminate against protected groups:

block quote
“

An insurer should not use an external data source, algorithm or predictive model for underwriting or rating purposes unless the insurer can establish that
the data source does not use and is not based in any way on race, color, creed, national origin, status as a victim of domestic violence, past lawful travel,
or sexual orientation in any manner, or any other protected class.
block quote end

The NYFS press release states that

block quote
“

…insurers’ use of external data sources has the potential to benefit insurers and consumers alike by simplifying and expediting life insurance sales
and underwriting processes. External data sources also have the potential to result in more accurate underwriting and pricing of life insurance.
block quote end

The use of social media by insurance companies has been a topic of debate for years now, although there’s very little legal guidance about what privacy
rights we have when posting online. Maria T. Vullo, the chief of the NYFS has been trying to get ahead of the inevitable by establishing some ground rules
after an 18-month investigation which collected information from 160 life insurers about their practices.

She
told the Wall Street Journal
last week:

block quote
“

Because this is a rapidly evolving area in insurance underwriting, it was important for the department to create general principles now.
block quote end

According to an inside source
from New York’s investigation, only one of the 160 companies polled currently uses social media data, but that company was not identified.

In 2012, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners released a
white paper
from their Social Media Working Group which mostly addressed the ways in which insurance companies could use social media in their marketing, but acknowledged
that it was already being used to monitor customers:

block quote
“

Companies are using social media in forensic data mining to discover workers’ compensation fraud. For example, some companies monitor social media sites
that might contain posts negating the claims of allegedly injured workers who are participating in activities that are beyond the restrictions placed by
the treating physician.
block quote end

Some background:

Traditionally, life insurance companies used physical exams and questionnaires to determine a customer’s rates. But as this is costly and time-consuming,

companies began to engage in predictive modeling
to determine how likely it was for a potential customer to develop a disease or engage in dangerous activities and used data collected from many public
sources (think medical records of injuries, accident claims, even parking tickets). This new method of data collection is an extension of this, but into
a realm we often (and mistakenly) treat as private.

Companies already had access to general social media trends (common phrases or hashtags, viral content, etc.) to help them understand their customers,
but this was largely for marketing and customer service, so it’s hard to make the case that that violated privacy in the way that this new, more personalized,
surveillance would.

A New York court decision in 2010 (
McCann v. Harleysville Insurance Co.)
declared that an insurance company could not conduct “a fishing expedition” into someone’s Facebook account “based on the mere hope of finding relevant
evidence,” but clearly insurers are finding workarounds. At the very least, it appears that the Fair Credit Reporting Act might give customers who are
denied insurance the right to know whether the decision was based on information gleaned from a social media profile. This could provide material for lawsuits
that could clarify the boundaries for everyone.

The danger and power of algorithms:

The new ground rules also warn life insurers using non-traditional data that they are responsible for analyzing their algorithms to be sure they are free
of bias against protected groups. This means that they can’t simply shop for algorithmic software and employ it without thorough testing first.

Of course, there are multiple issues here, despite the agency’s best efforts to try to make the process unbiased. First, we know that companies have often

refused to share details of their algorithms
with customers and the law has allowed them to do so. We often don’t know how they are processing data, so all we can do is continue to test them. But
we also don’t know how much testing it takes to determine if an algorithm is unbiased, and there’s no objective mechanism or yardstick that allows a company
to truly confirm a lack of bias.

Second, while there are plenty of great data scientists and ethicists working together to find ways to make algorithms less biased, we simply don’t know
how to do it yet. Humans write algorithms and all of us have biases of some sort. The more we claim we don’t have them, the more deeply entrenched they
likely are, making it even more difficult to ferret them out. This has been
a disaster already
in employment decisions and court sentencing decisions that employ these algorithms. But we continue to think that data is objective and can yield some
sort of truth about the world.

Third, it will be very difficult for customers who are not well-versed in algorithmic bias to fight against unfair decisions made about their life insurance
premiums based on data they don’t even realize they’re giving away. We’ve been bombarded with stories about privacy violations, especially from social
media giants like Facebook, over the last year and instead of seeing people take steps to protect themselves,
Facebook has only seen more new customers and increased profits.

At the end of the day, a surprising number of people are
perfectly willing to hand over their data
to life insurance companies for as little as a gift card or a
discount on an Apple Watch.

And if you think you’re safe because you don’t have a social media profile, think again. Recent research has shown that
information about a person can be constructed from the comments of as few as 8 of their friends.
You are what you post, but apparently, you are what your friends and family post as well. This doesn’t appear to be a tactic insurance companies are looking
into yet, but it’s important to keep in mind as they expand their methods of surveillance.

It’s also important to note that social media posts can be deeply misleading, even to a deep learning algorithm assigned to seek out, process, and judge
the value of photos that customers post online. If you’ve given up smoking but have old photos with cigarette in hand (or repost one of those popular Facebook
Memories) how can a computer (or even an underwriter with a lot of work to do) properly assess the context of a photo? How do you control what other people
post about you online?

While Photoshopped images and even deepfakes could eventually become a problem for those looking to sabotage customers, that’s likely a problem that lies
farther down the line. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t keep it in mind.

There are some more likely scenarios that it’s worth watching out for (and, to be fair, some scenarios that are worth avoiding altogether). The U.S. Insurance
Agent’s blog, which aims to help customers compare plans and provides commentary on the industry
has shared some possibilities
for ways in which customers might harm their chances of getting not just life in insurance, but home and renters insurance, and keeping their premiums
down. It’s unclear whether or not companies would go this far, but some possibilities include posting photos or updates while driving, posting about an
unregistered pet that is classified as a “bully breed,” leaving on your geotagging when you’re on vacation and thus signaling to thieves that your house
is vacant. These are things we rarely think about when posting online.

So what can we do?

Plenty of people will join the chorus of protests against this invasion of privacy, but it could also be the case that New York is doing us a favor by
putting something on the record that can be challenged. No states have any rules right now governing how life insurers can populate their algorithms. We
know they currently use public records such as homeownership data, credit information, educational attainment, civil judgments, licensures and other public
filings, and even internet use. But now that they’ve taken an extra step – and one that will appropriately freak people out – the legal system can move
into action. Yes, it will take unfair decisions and lawsuits, and time, and money, but that’s how the system currently works.

While we wait to see how this all shakes out, customers should be sure to read the fine print on their insurance policies and ask specific questions about
what companies will access in order to determine their rates. Companies should be as transparent as possible about how they collect data and state that
on their websites in easy-to-understand terms so that customers can make informed decisions about whether they want to apply for a policy with a specific
company. The new guidelines do mention the need for transparency:

block quote
“

Where an insurer is using external data sources or predictive models, the reason or reasons for any declination, limitation, rate differential or other
adverse underwriting decision provided to the insured or potential insured should include details about all information upon which the insurer based such
decision, including the specific source of the information upon which the insurer based its adverse underwriting decision.
block quote end

And while data breaches and hacks can’t protect even data you’ve marked private, it does make sense for social media users to explore the privacy settings
on their accounts. It will be harder for an insurance company to defend their use of data if it has been stolen and trafficked on the Dark Web.

In the meantime, make your profiles private, revisit your friends’ list and privacy settings for individual posts, turn off location services and geotagging,
delete compromising photos, do not allow other people to tag you on social media without your permission, and most importantly, do not engage in dangerous
behavior like texting and posting while driving, and always be honest with your insurance company about your habits and health.

Of course, it’s in the best financial interests of honest customers and insurance companies to prevent insurance fraud, which appears to be the main reason
a company would check a social media profile right now.

To know more: Contact ABCO technology

Over the years, I’ve posted numerous articles for ABCO Technology’s webpage. At times, in researching material I run across an author who has something meaningful to add to the discussion. Today, I’m republishing an article written by Jack Hough. Mr. Hough writes for Barrons Magazine. His latest article, entitled, want to earn a degree in outrage examines some interesting facts about obtaining a college degree. The tone of his article isn’t against attending college. Jack Hough points out that a college degree should have a purpose. One main flaw is that colleges should not be able to judge their own product. The important aspect to consider when going for that degree is to determine a definite plan and purpose for future employment after completing your course of study. Now let’s get to Mr. Hough’s article.

Photoshopping one kid’s face onto another kid’s pole-vault picture is almost always funny. One exception is when a media executive pays $200,000 for the
job as part of a scam that gets her kid into the University of Southern California. It spoils the humor even more if she disguises the payoff as charity
to claim a tax break.

That’s one allegation among many in a sprawling college-admissions scandal unveiled this past week. An investigation by more than 200 federal agents led
to charges against 50 people in six states. Parents had test administrators bribed. They claimed that their kids had learning disabilities to get extra
test time. One actress accused of paying $500,000 to pass her daughters off as crew-team recruits had previously confessed to falsifying a preschool application—not
in real life, but in a 1993 episode of Full House. If aggravated irony isn’t a crime, it should be.

My personal outrage meter ought to be registering an eight out of 10 over this case, but it’s stuck at 4.5. The problem is I recently uncovered some other
scandalous college facts as part of a sweeping investigation using Google for nearly an hour. Among them:

New York University charges $6,500 for Calculus I. That’s tuition and fees, not books, residence, and a Vespa scooter. The rules of calculus were laid
down more than 300 years ago by two guys in wigs. You can learn everything for free on YouTube. So where does all this pricing power come from? Hold that
thought.

It’s not just math, and it’s not just NYU. The sticker price for the average private four-year college is now over $50,000 a year, including room and board.
Do you know what else $200,000 in cash can buy a 22-year-old? A $3 million retirement, if the money is invested at about a 6% year return until age 68.

Stanford University let in 4.3% of applicants last year. It ranks among the top U.S. schools. The number of applicants has more than tripled over the past
30 years, but yearly enrollment has barely budged.

That’s remarkable, because those 30 years have witnessed the birth of the web, which has enabled all sorts of once-tiny enterprises, especially right down
the road from Stanford in Silicon Valley, to connect with vast numbers of users. Some things you just can’t do online, of course. Like visiting Disney
World in Florida. Only Disney World has figured out how to grow attendance from 20 million a year to 55 million over the past 30 years.

Harvard’s admission rate is about 5%. Princeton’s, too. I’m not saying elite schools resemble a supply-restricting cartel. I’m saying that no hospital
would be proud of turning away 95% of patients. To applicants, these schools can seem less in the business of teaching than in the business of culling
the brightest students and branding them for lifelong success. No wonder some Hollywood power moms are going Full House on the admissions process.

The financial payoff of a college degree is looking shaky. I know: The average college graduate earns significantly more than the average nongraduate.
But that income premium has dropped for students born in the 1980s, and even more important, the wealth premium for those students has fallen off a cliff,

according to a recently published study
by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Also, it doesn’t take a $6,500 calculus class to judge the financial payoff for a college degree, but it does require a fairly robust set of inputs. Ignore
any analysis that doesn’t mention the time value of money. I have yet to see one that adjusts for slowpokes and dropouts. Among students who started at
a four-year college in 2010, only 60% had graduated six years later.

Anyone with a reasonable shot of completing a college degree should do so. There are nonmonetary benefits related to career fulfillment, social status,
health, and more. But the fact that so many kids will lose money on a thing that ought to be cheap is at least as scandalous as impersonating a pole-vaulter.

U.S. student debt stands at $1.5 trillion. Not to sound ungrateful to lenders, or to the federal government for nudging them toward students, but whenever
we want to make something more affordable in America, we seem to come up with one answer: artificially puff up buying power against constrained supply.
See housing and health care for other examples. What eventually happens is about as comfortable for consumers as trying to sneeze with a mouthful of mashed
potatoes.

Did you hear that Walmart has started deciding for itself which steaks in its grocery section look likely to grill up juicy and flavorful? Just kidding.
Much as we like Walmart, we’d never trust it with a job that important. That’s why we have an army of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors to judge
beef “prime” or “choice” based on marbling. Yet colleges confer their own degrees, and so are the main judges of their own product, education. That’s not
scandalous, but it might hold the key to making college affordable.

Here’s my prediction: Somewhere hunched over a $180 textbook on data structures and algorithms right now is an indebted 20-year-old who will one day create
a new system for measuring student achievement. This will allow us to tell which schools impart the greatest student improvement per dollar of cost, and
not just which schools the brightest kids flock to. Brand names will become less important than performance. The cost of college will crash. Schools will
innovate to survive, then thrive.

Just in case, I’m going to keep stashing money in those college accounts for the kids. And maybe push them into crew.

Write to Jack Hough at
jack.hough@barrons.com
A vocational education in information technology could be the answer for many who are reading this article. Call our campus between 9A. M. and 6 P. M. Monday through Friday at (310) 216-3067.
Email all questions to: cpascal@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for federal student aid.
ABCO Technology is located in Inglewood California less than two miles from LAX.
We are at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE #588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Train and certify for your information technology career today!

Google has put out a detailed blog post explaining how it determines the dates displayed by listings in search results and outlining helpful guidance and best practices on how to get these right.

Google shows a date when its systems determine it would be useful to do so, so for example for news and other time-sensitive content.

Put your dates in snippets by using mark ups. You can learn how at: www.schema.org.
Google wouldn’t be Google without a bit of obfuscation and it was less than precise about defining exactly the factors that govern which dates are shown:

block quote
“Google determines a date using a variety of factors, including but not limited to: any prominent date listed on the page itself or dates provided by the
publisher through structured markup.”
block quote end

To be fair, Google says all factors can be prone to issues which is why it doesn’t depend on a single one. Publishers might not provide a clear date or
the structured data may be lacking or incorrect. So, it looks at multiple factors to determine a best estimate of when a page was published or significantly
updated.

Google offers the following guidance for publishers and site owners.

How to specify a date
list of 2 items
• Show a clear date prominently on the page.
• With
structured data,
use date Published and date Modified schema with the correct time zone designator for
AMP or non-AMP
pages.
list end

Google News

Google says these items clearly require a correct date for when they were created or substantially updated and specific guidelines for Google News are
available via
Google Help.
Google also reminds publishers not to artificially freshen articles without a significant update.

Further best practice

In addition to the significant information above, Google says publishers should follow these best practices:

list of 6 items
• Show when a page has been updated
• Use the right time zone
• Be consistent in usage
• Don’t use future dates or dates related to what a page is about
• Follow Google’s
structured data guidelines
• Troubleshoot by minimizing other dates on the page
list end

For more details on the above, see Google’s
blog post.

Have you ever thought about becoming an Oracle database administrator? This article will provide you the information you need to join this group of highly talented and professional information technology personnel.
On March 13, 2019 I decided to conduct a job search for Oracle database administrator jobs in Los Angeles. After typing the search query into Google’s search box, I found 22 jobs available for Oracle database administrators in the Los Angeles area. A great job is being offered by planned Parenthood in Downtown Los Angeles with good benefits, the Pasadena School district is looking for two candidates with Oracle DBA certification and a list of companies who all want to hire a candidate with the latest database skills.
The salaries ranged from $60,000 to $130,000 based upon work experience. The point of the salary range demonstrates that as you gain experience with Oracle, your salary will advance with your knowledge.
Many of you who will be reading this article for the first time will want to know about the best career path to become a database administrator with Oracle certifications.
Oracle has two certifications for this career path. These certificates include: Oracle Certified Associate and the Oracle certified Professional. Candidates who are interested in completing this course of study pass three exams. The first exam grants the holder the certification of Oracle certified Associate and passing the next two exams grants the candidate the certificate of Oracle database administrator.
A comprehensive course for Oracle is completed at ABCO Technology in 7 months. Students attending this course pass the first exam, the Oracle Certified Associate within the first 7 weeks. Oracle certified associates become proficient with Oracle’s version of SQL, which is known as structured query language. Oracle’s version of SQL is known as PLSQL. Many companies hire Oracle certified Associates for data entry positions.
After passing the next two exams, which we will call Oracle Certified Professional, Part 1 and Part 2, the student is granted a full certification as an Oracle database administrator.
After passing this certification, you are ready to begin your job search through ABCO Technology’s job placement assistance program, which will help you with resume writing, job interview skills and actual company searches.
Call our campus between 9 A. M. and 6 P. M. Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email: cpascal@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for federal student aid.

Why Network + certification will help your IT career
The network + certification is the next certificate level above the CompTIA A+. The network + focuses its’ curriculum on server theory and network operations. The A+ focuses on the individual computer or workstation.
After passing the A+ exams, which deal with computer hardware and operating systems, employers want their employees to advance to the level of being able to maintain a corporate server. The network + focuses on that employer requirement involved with handling servers either on site or in the cloud. CompTIA’s network + is also vendor neutral. The exam has questions about servers, WIFI, cyber-security, cabling, troubleshooting networks and basic network theory. After completing the CompTIA Network +, the level of understanding of how a network operates and functions is greatly increased.
The Network + exam also explores TCP and UDP protocol theory, which is essential to a network’s operation.
Many candidates who have passed their Network + have reported getting raises in salary from their employer as a result of passing this exam.
The CompTIA Network + is completed in approximately 90 hours. Close to 78 of those hours are instructor lead. Students who study for this exam should take several practice tests. A score of 90% or higher on the practice exams will place the odds of passing the actual exam strongly in your favor.
Like all of CompTIA certifications, the Network + doesn’t require a two or four-year college degree. Companies are hiring network personnel who have completed high school and passed the A+ and network + exams.
After passing the network +, the doors are open for a career in either cyber-security or network administration. Students will need to pass other certifications, which include the Cisco Certified Network Associate. The Network + builds that strong foundation, which is needed to pass those higher certifications.