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
Google has withdrawn ratings from Adwords extensions. So you will no longer be able to add these to your ads. Why are they taking this action and does it signify a wider problem with ratings? More importantly, does this mean local results or seller ratings
#Google #AdWords allows you to add something called extensions to your ads. Extensions are additional pieces of information that are free to add and can boost your click through rate. Some examples are:
•Sitelinks •Call outs •Structured snippets
If you’re not already using extensions, then you should be! It’s a great way of increasing CTR (by around 10%) and at a point where more advertisers are using them than not, you’re going to be hit increasingly hard if you’re not using them.
Unfortunately, like many things with Google, you can suggest what you want them to show but they decide whether or not they want to show it.
Reviews Extensions
Google didn’t source these reviews themselves. You added them, linking to the source, and the Adwords team just reviewed them before they were allowed live.
Although Google have given little reasoning behind why they have removed them, it seems it might just have been a badly designed system.
For a start on Google’s part it has got to be resource intensive, with team members having to click through, find reviews with matching text and approve. Although it’s likely this was partially automated, if even only a tiny percentage required manual review then it would be a large drain on resources.
This brings us to the next issue: legitimacy. Could you just make the reviews up? Well yes, you could. If you wanted to add a fake review to your site, then include it in the site link there is little Google could do to tell. This is the problem with pretty much all reviews and leads me on nicely to the final point.
Was the review representative? The reason why we trust a review from an unknown source is that it correlates with many other reviews. With this system you could just cherrypick whichever review you wanted, so even if the product is terrible someone, somewhere, is bound to like it and leave a good review. Which you can then legitimately use in your adwords extension.
Finally, you might be clicking on an ad for a product but for the sitelinks reviews, Google encouraged you to utilise those which reflected the site as a whole:
Reviews should focus on your business as a whole, as opposed to a review about a specific product or service. This makes the reviews relevant to just about all of your ads.
So you the user could well think that a general review such as “Absolutely excellent, will be purchasing again” is about the specific link they see in the ad. But it’s not, it’s about the site as whole and may be validating an otherwise awful product.
Does this mean there is a wider problem with reviews?
Reviews themselves have come increasingly under attack. If like myself you use shopping sites such as Amazon and have been doing so for a while, you’ll have seen what I mean. There are so many fake reviews, paid-for reviews, and reviews created by third-party companies paid to create them.
This problem has been created by the effectiveness of reviews, if customer is purchasing a third party product through your site you’ll want to make sure that the best products are shown first. This means using reviews to help weight products in how you rank them. Which in turn means vendors are more and more incentivized to have the best reviews possible. Which is fine, except that not all vendors have great products, but they still want great reviews.
So what’s the solution? What about other ratings-based extensions?
Reviews as part of AdWords extensions are in principle a great idea, but there some real fundamental issues with these which need to be resolved. AdWords needs to strike a balance between what the advertisers – who are after all paying for that advert – want to display and what is a fair representation for the consumer.
These means really they should be looking at a more independent source of reviews or way of gathering these. This is what they do with both seller ratings and consumer ratings.
Seller ratings are an automated (opt out) extension which look like this:
These are shown on search network text ads, or as an abridged version in Google shopping results. Seller ratings show a star rating and text snippet which they gather from a long list of third party review sites and they only show in certain circumstances;
In most cases, seller ratings only appear when a business has 150 unique reviews and a composite rating of 3.5 stars or more.
Consumer ratings are another automated extension and are taken directly from Google customer surveys which they ran for specific industries. So, these will only appear on certain results where they have data:
Google also use a star rating in reviews within local results and although having these linked to a Google account negates some of the problems, they are still pretty open to abuse. Many businesses only have a small number of reviews, meaning just one or two added from friends or family accounts might be all that’s needed to influence a consumer’s decision.
AdWords needs to use a service which is more long standing with a large number of reviews already present and which have their own controls in place to ensure these are legitimate, much like they do with their seller reviews extension. However, even dedicated review sites have massive problems with this. Like the guy who made his shed the top rated restaurant on trip advisor. In short you can’t trust reviews.
Adverts fall under advertising guidelines in both the UK and US where if ads are misleading they have to be removed. Publishers who regularly break these rules or are deemed to be not doing enough to prevent misleading ads can be fined. So AdWords must adhere to a higher standard than the sites it would be taking the source content from, hence the potential problem.
So was Google right to remove them and will we be seeing them again?
In my opinion reviews are becoming less of a trustworthy metric. The ability of bad actors to place them has far outstripped that of companies to ensure they are legitimate. This might be down to the cost / benefit being vastly different from both sides. For an individual company a set of good reviews could be the difference in zero revenue for a product, or $1000’s. So spending several hundreds or even thousands just on ensuring they have good reviews is well worth it. For a review site though, they simply cannot afford to spend anywhere near an equivalent amount on checking the reviews for an individual product. In short there is a lot more total effort going into making fake reviews than there is in removing them. Google tries to negate this with automated extensions by using a wide variety of sources, or their own survey results which they have more control over.
The way the Reviews extension was implemented in AdWords was pretty much asking for trouble. Then again, while there are better ways, I still don’t think there are any that are ‘good enough’. We’ll have to wait and see what Google does in the longer term and if it decides to make any changes in the organic results or to the other automation tools on their site.
#ABCO #Technology teaches courses for E-commerce and web design. Contact 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 can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Google has been testing the new version of search console in beta for a few months and will now start making it available to all verified users. Users will receive a message once their site is available in the new Search Console.
Functionality will include redesigned Search Performance and Index Coverage, as well as AMP status and Job Posting reports. Users will welcome the expansion of data in Search Performance to 16 months, making it easier to analyze long term trends. Google has also added the ability to share reports internally within an organization, to simplify internal knowledge sharing and collaboration.
While #Google continues work on adding features the two versions will exist side by side, and users will be able to move easily between the old and new Search Console via links in the navigation bar.
Search Performance
Search performance is similar to the current Search Analytics. It has 16 months of data, which is something users have been requesting. The data will also be made available via the Search Console API in the near future.
Search Performance
Search Console gives full details about the Search Performance feature.
Index Coverage
The updated Index Coverage report gives a comprehensive insight into how your site is being indexed by Google and makes it easy to find tools to test and resubmit URLs. Google says:
“It shows correctly indexed URLs, warnings about potential issues, and reasons why Google isn’t indexing some URLs. The report is built on our new Issue tracking functionality that alerts you when new issues are detected and helps you monitor their fix.”
Index Coverage
Google’s screenshot outlines the process in these numbered steps:
1.Clicking any error URL brings up page details and links to diagnostic tools to help understand the source of the problem.
2.The new Share button in Search Console lets you share the report within your team to facilitate a fix.
3.Select a flagged issue and click on Validate Fix to confirm you’ve resolved the problem. Google will recrawl and reprocess the URL with higher priority.
4.Google says the Index Coverage report works best for sites that have submitted a sitemap. You can use the sitemap filter to focus on an exact list of URLs.
Search Console’s report on Index Coverage gives more details.
The AMP status and Job Posting reports also focus on providing error data. You’ll be able to see which AMP urls have errors, get diagnostic help, and resubmit once fixed. For those with job listings on their site, the Job Posting report will show indexing stats and any errors.
For full details on the new Search Console rollout, see Google’s blog post.
#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
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
Pizza Hut’s customers had their online accounts compromised. Cybercrime is growing at such a rapid rate, even companies selling products as safe as pizza are under cyber-attack. The increase in cybercrime to this level continues to create more cyber security jobs.
Pizza Hut told customers by email on Saturday that some of their personal information may have been compromised. Some of those customers are angry that it took almost two weeks for the fast food chain to notify them.
According to a customer notice emailed from the pizza chain, those who placed an order on its website or mobile app between the morning of Oct. 1 and midday Oct. 2 might have had their information exposed.
The “temporary security intrusion” lasted for about 28 hours, the notice said, and it’s believed that names, billing ZIP codes, delivery addresses, email addresses and payment card information — meaning account number, expiration date and CVV numbers — were compromised. Would you like to be that special person who saved your company from a devastating cyber-attack?
A cyber-attack of this level could only occur if the network administrators didn’t use or have the correct cyber security skills. The media fails to report that most cyber-attacks occur over time. Before the attacker intruded into Pizza Huts network, a great deal of time was spent in making login attempts, port scanning, analyzing for network weaknesses and stealing passwords. The activity could have been detected if the company had the right tools in place. The fact Pizza Hut was attacked for 28 hours clearly demonstrates someone in cyber security failed to do their job. You could be the network administrator who picks up where those cyber admins left off.
The skills we are talking about in this article involve cyber security. Courses including CompTIA Security +, Certified Ethical Hacker, Linux Fundamentals and Cisco Certified Network Associate will create a library of cyber skills, which will help any network administrator implement cyber security policies.
A thorough understanding of the computer and network servers is also required for this job. The network administrator must think of any network as an electronic eco system. Maintaining such a mindset will go a long way towards preventing the type of cyber-attack, which occurred at Pizza Hut.
If you want to have an exciting career in cyber security, please contact ABCO Technology. Reaching our Los Angeles campus is easy. We are available by telephone from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday 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. in STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304.
Cyber security is a growing field in information technology. Train for a cyber security position today!
For local businesses, having a strong presence in local search results is fundamental to those all-important conversions
Just to be clear, a “local business” refers to any business that has either a physical location that offers face-to-face contact with the customer, such as a showroom or shop, or one that offers a face-to-face service within a certain area.
When it comes to local search, it’s simple: if searchers can’t find you on the web, then frankly, you are web invisible. It’s the way of the modern world.
It’s all very well dominating the SERPs for your more general target keywords, but if you fail to rank highly for location-specific terms then you are missing a great opportunity.
When users are searching for a local term, they are far more likely to be looking for a service or product. Hence why the conversions on local search tend to be higher, and why you need to ensure that your local search engine marketing is on target for your business.
Of course all the usual SEO 101 knowledge applies. Offer an unrivaled user experience, nail your on-site optimization, provide exceptional content and build quality links.
Those fundamentals will set you up for ranking well for local search terms, but there are extra steps you must take to differentiate yourself from the competition and really bolster your local SEM strategy.
Local business listings
The first place to start is with local business listings. Ensure that your business is included in all the major directories (Yell, which is the UK’s local directory, Yelp, Thomson Local, etc.), as well as any industry specific ones. Some listings may already exist, and it may just be a case of claiming your business so that you can take ownership of the listing.
We recommend keeping track of all your business listings in one comprehensive spreadsheet to save you repeating or forgetting any entries. It also enables you to be consistent (more on this in the next point) in your information across all listings.
Remove all duplicated entries, as multiple listings for one business or location can become confusing, both to potential customers but also to Google. And we certainly don’t want to be confusing the Big G.
Be thorough but don’t be reckless. Avoid spammy directories as these could have a detrimental effect on your SEO. Deploy a spot of common sense to identify the spammy directories but if you are really unsure then it’s worth checking the spam score via Moz’s Open Site Explorer or via other similar tools.
Google My Business
So this technically falls under business listings, but it’s so important we’ve given Google My Business its own subheading. Arguably the most important business listing because, well, it’s Google. Remember to implement the following: ◾Claim your business via a verification process ◾Include accurate information: contact details, location and opening hours ◾Carefully select a small number of highly relevant categories to represent your business ◾Ensure up-to-date branding, such as in any images of logos or premises ◾Use high quality images to represent the business
Be comprehensive and accurate in the information you provide in order to strengthen your Google My Business profile and improve your chances of being featured in Google’s three-pack.
For further information, have a read of Google’s guidelines on representing your business. Don’t forget to also cover off the equivalent for Bing and Yahoo with Bing Places and Yahoo! Local.
NAP consistency
NAP consistency sounds a like a fancy term but the concept is very simple. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number, although it is sometimes expanded to NAP+W to include website address too. As mentioned above, it is crucial that your business information appears consistently across the web.
This is particularly important to consider if your business has changed address, contact details or even rebranded. Any mentions of your business will need to be checked and updated to ensure accuracy.
Simply google your business name (do the same with your previous business name if you have undergone a name change) and work your way through the listings. Maintain a spreadsheet of your progress so you can keep track.
Reviews
Reviews can bring both utter joy and absolute misery to any business owner. Unfortunately you cannot simply ignore them, as reviews are indeed used as ranking signals in the eyes of the search engine. This is especially true for your Google My Business reviews.
Not only are reviews important in terms of local rankings, they are also key in terms of click-through rates. According to a recent study by BrightLocal, 74 per cent of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.
Apart from providing the most incredible customer service you can muster, how else can you seize some control over your reviews? No, this isn’t about getting your mum, brother and great-nan to write a review for your business. It’s about a bit of gentle encouragement and managing a bad customer experience before it reaches the review stage.
It is also important to check the rules and regulations of each review platform, as they all have very different policies on asking customers for reviews and responding to them.
We’ve had several students who have received a negative one-off, anonymous review for their business or website that is either quite clearly spam, or in some cases, a bitter competitor or personal enemy. These situations can get a bit sticky, but sadly there isn’t an awful lot you can do.
Generally people won’t be deterred by one bad review, and the best course of action is to encourage other happy customers to get reviewing. This will push the bad review down and push the average star rating back up.
Many review platforms allow you to reply to reviews. This can be a good opportunity to set the record straight but you have to be careful about it. For this reason, sometimes it is best to get someone who is not as emotionally invested in the business to either write the response or edit it before it gets published. Be professional, remain calm, and kill them with kindness.
Location pages
If you don’t already have location pages on your website, then you could be missing a valuable opportunity to target all the relevant locations. For each key location that your business operates within, create a page dedicated to that location on your website. This is easier if you have a unique physical address in each location, as it is important to include as much location-specific information as possible.
Where there is a physical location, be sure to include an interactive map and images to further enhance the page. If you do not have separate physical addresses, try including testimonials and case studies relevant to each location.
This will help you to avoid duplicating content across your location pages; it’s a fine art to differentiate the copy, but do it right and it can have seriously good effects on your local SEM strategy.
Schema markup
Once you have your location pages set up, the cherry on the cake is schema markup. The whole concept of structured data can sound very daunting to markup newbies, but it’s easier than it sounds. Schema markup simply helps search engines to understand what your website is about.
This is particularly important for local information, as it will help those spiders crawl your location pages and you’ll benefit as a result.
According to a study by Searchmetrics, pages with schema markup rank an average of four positions higher in search results. Now that’s a pretty good incentive. Get your head around schema markup and you’ll have that crucial advantage over your competitors in the local search results.
Ensuring your local search marketing strategy is up to speed shouldn’t be difficult or convoluted. Follow the above steps and obey the usual SEO rules. With some hard work and perseverance, you’ll start dominating those coveted top spots and see your conversions skyrocket in no time.
ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for web design, which includes search engine marketing and social media strategy. Call our campus to receive information about this program or other classes. Call us 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 can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304. Build highly successful websites today!
Many people still rely on guest blogging as an ongoing part of their link-building strategy.
If you analyze this for a moment, getting links through guest blogging is much easier than getting links through some other channel.
So it’s no wonder that a lot of bloggers and SEO experts still favor this method. The main question is, are these guest post links still safe and viable?
The answer is yes.
It is very possible to build our link portfolio by contributing on authoritative websites. However, there are certain rules that we need to follow in order to avoid any issues with Google.
Guest blogging 101
One of the beautiful things about guest blogging is that it gives us the opportunity to score some great links from high-tier websites.
To be honest, we probably couldn’t have gotten those links with any other method. This is why guest blogging is always worth bearing in mind as a link-building strategy.
But, we need to be very careful when choosing the websites we guest post for.
Although guest blogging can be carried out on a large scale, you should probably avoid it. This method is optimal in small dosages while cooperating with the biggest domains.
Google trusts authoritative domains. If they notice that your links are coming only from reputable sources, they will not impose a penalty. However…
1) Be Careful not to overdo it!
The biggest problem with guest blogging is that people tend to overdo it.
Your articles should be coming from various sources, with different anchors. If your only source of inbound links is from guest articles, Google will notice this pattern and you will soon get into trouble.
Instead, you should choose your battles carefully. You need to diversify your link profile.
If you already decide to do some guest posting, make sure it counts. Otherwise you’ll waste all that time you spent building up relationships and writing your posts – with only a Google penalty to show for it.
2) Focus on quality
This is where most people go wrong.
Google assesses the articles from which you are getting links. If the article is of high quality, your link will also be regarded as a quality one.
This makes sense, right? After all, why would anyone bother creating a great piece only to place crappy links throughout?
So when you put together a guest post, make sure it’s a good one.
After creating their own article, people try to promote it by writing guest posts. These guest posts will usually be of much lower quality and they will have the same regurgitated content which you published on your own blog.
By doing this, not only are you getting a devalued link, but you are also endangering your original piece. Google will flag up the regurgitated versions of your article as possible duplicate content. And because there are any number of similar, low-quality pieces out there online, it may conclude that your article is low-quality as well.
Everything you create has to be unique and to provide value to the reader. When you write a guest post, ask yourself: would I link to this piece?
If the answer is yes, you are in the clear.
3) Add images, links and formatting
As I mentioned, each guest post you make needs to be distinctive. Even if you are employing this strategy on a larger scale, at least make sure that everything you create is a separate entity.
One of the best ways to differentiate articles is by using varied formatting.
Blogs always have use different fonts and that is something you have no control over. But you have the ability to break up paragraphs and add things like bullet points, subheadings, block quotes and more. These increase the readability of your piece, and also make it easier for search engines to crawl it and interpret the content.
Another way to improve the look and layout of your text is to add images and other media.
Do not be shy and don’t wait for the website editor to insert them for you. Instead, be proactive and use your own images. Add a couple of them if necessary. If they make sense and the text looks better because of it, the editor will be more inclined to ask you for additional guest posts.
You can even go the extra mile and write titles and alt text to optimize the images for SEO – the editor will thank you, as it will save them the effort, and it will improve the overall SEO value of your piece.
Lastly, we come to links.
Now, editors usually allow one link in your bio, or one link within the article. Most of them do not like it when an author writes a piece with numerous links pointing to different websites.
However, if the editor allows it, make sure to add some highly relevant links that will make the article even more authoritative.
4) Vary your anchor text
You are trying to rank for a certain keyword. In an attempt to rank, you try to spam the same anchor text over and over.
This strategy is pretty much obsolete. Instead, just as with everything else that we’ve mentioned so far, make sure to diversify things.
Anchor text should vary.
When people place links with purely editorial value, without trying to cynically rank for a specific keyword, they will rarely link with the exact same phrase every time. This is highly unnatural behavior and can get you in trouble.
Instead, make sure to use different phrases. Place links in different sentences, with different anchors. Focus on writing naturally and place your link accordingly.
Conclusion
Guest blogging is NOT dead. As far as we know, there is no Google system or algorithm that will penalize the creation of such articles.
Nevertheless, it is better to be conservative. Like always, it comes down to whether your link profile looks natural. There should be no indication that you are purposely trying to push a keyword (even if you are).
People usually think about guest blogging in terms of links. However, you should observe it from a different perspective. By using this strategy, not only should you get links, you should also get some good exposure.
Your articles should promote your skills as well as your blog.
By placing emphasis on this, you will be able to accomplish much more with guest posts and as a result, links will start coming from various sources without you forcing them.
ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive course for web development, guest blogging and search engine marketing. 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 the federal funding. ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304 Start building successful websites today!
Cybersecurity is a fundamental consideration for all organizations operating in today’s connected and data-driven world. While all who work across your business – from the IT department, to the PR team and beyond – need to understand the fundamentals of cybersecurity, CMOs have a special responsibility as leaders to ensure they are mitigating risk and are prepared in the event of a possible breach. Here are five things CMOs need to know.
1. Vulnerabilities
In business, CMOs are perhaps some of the best placed when it comes to understanding the global reach of an organization. This is of particular importance when it comes to cybersecurity, as the growing popularity of globally-connected technologies – such as cloud storage and mobile sharing – bring with them increased points of potential vulnerability.
This is a key concern for the CMO, as they are custodians of potentially massive amounts of customer data. Recent security breaches at companies like Yahoo, Deloitte and Equifax have massively damaging implications – both in terms of revenue and brand trust.
CMOs need to be aware of the proliferation of connected technologies across the organization in order to fully understand where possible breaches might happen.
2. Threats
Understanding potential vulnerabilities is one step; acknowledging actual threats is another.
Businesses need to be prepared for increasingly sophisticated and globally organized attackers. Vulnerabilities can give hackers access to confidential business information, as well as lead to theft of personal information of staff and customers.
It is the last threat which is perhaps the most important to be prepared for. The breakdown of trust between organization and customer is the most damaging to business and brand image going forward.
CMOs also need to acknowledge theft of information in the digital realm is not the only threat. Connected IoT devices can also allow hackers to potentially gain access in the physical space such as buildings and vehicles.
3. Prevention
CMOs need to be clear as to how such cybersecurity breaches can be prevented.
They need to collaborate with those across other business departments in ensuring there are clear organization-wide guidelines for security best practice – including keeping apps and software up-to-date, changing passwords regularly and educating team members about phishing scams.
It is essential that CMOs champion these activities within their team, and ensure policies, training and enforcement are up-to-date. Working closely with the local governments is a good way to standardize practices to match those in the wider business community – and to ensure compliance.
For businesses with European connections, GDPR provides a good opportunity to review data best practices.
4. Action
A keen understanding of the above and the most stringent prevention techniques will never make an organization completely immune from cybersecurity breaches.
CMOs can use data and speculation tools to plan action in post-breach scenarios. Again, preparedness for action is key – and collaboration between CMOs and all other business teams are the best way to ensure the correct action takes place if cybersecurity is undermined.
5. Communication
All staff need to understand the importance of cybersecurity – but CMOs can help ensure that knowledge is shared. Collaborations tools help streamline this process by providing channels for any team to communicate.
If a cybersecurity breach has already happened, synergy among C-suite, security, IT and public relations teams is critical. CMOs must have answers to the questions like: What are your best practice communications strategies with customers? Is information about the breach easy to find for worried consumers?
In the event of a cybersecurity breach, businesses need to be clear in their external communications – clarifying exactly what data was exposed and making users aware of worst-case scenarios.
Takeaways
When it comes to cybersecurity, no organization can be 100% protected from breaches. All staff members need to clear on the above five areas, and CMOs have a unique position in being able to lead planning and education within the business to ensure all teams can work quickly and efficiently if the worst happens.
It is the responsibility of the CMO to ensure customers are protected and that they are first to know should such a breach occur. Collaboration and communication is key during such situations – to ensure trust is maintained, information is accessible and order is restored as soon as possible.
ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for cyber security. 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 can qualify for funding. ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304. Get trained and certified for cyber security today!
As an Oracle Certified Associate, you will cultivate industry-supported skills and credentials that you will be able to transfer to future employment opportunities. With your OCA certification, you will be able to demonstrate and promote the fact that you have the necessary skills to do your job effectively and you are certified by Oracle Corporation the world’s leader in Database Management Systems.
What are the Prerequisites & for OCA
Prior to enrolling for OCA courses the applicants have to know how to use the Microsoft Windows operating system. General knowledge of computer programming and databases will be helpful but not necessarily required.
OCA® Topic Requirements:
SQL Fundamentals I
Program with PL/SQL
SQL Fundamentals I Oracle routinely publishes new versions of exams, and the passing score across versions may differ.
SQL Fundamental I This course introduces students to the fundamentals of SQL using Oracle Database 12C database technology, which revolves around the cloud. In this course students learn the concepts of relational databases and the powerful SQL programming language. This course provides the essential SQL skills that allow developers to write queries against single and multiple tables, manipulate data in tables, and create database objects.
The students also learn to use single row functions to customize output, use conversion functions and conditional expressions and use group functions to report aggregated data. Demonstrations and hands-on practice reinforce the fundamental concepts.
In this course, students use Oracle SQL Developer and SQL *Plus as the tool.
Course Objectives:
• Retrieve row and column data from tables with the SELECT statement
• Create reports of sorted and restricted data
• Employ SQL functions to generate and retrieve customized data
• Display data from multiple tables using the ANSI SQL 99 JOIN syntax
• Create reports of aggregated data
•Use the SET operators to create subsets of data
•Run data manipulation statements (DML) to update data in the Oracle Database 12C
•Run data definition language (DDL) statements to create and manage schema objects
• Identify the major structural components of the Oracle Database 12C
Course Topics:
Introduction •Listing the features of Oracle Database 12C •Discussing the basic design, theoretical and physical aspects of a relational database •Describing the development environments for SQL •Describing Oracle SQL Developer, Describing the data set used by the course
Retrieving Data Using the SQL SELECT Statement
• Listing the capabilities of SQL SELECT statements.
• Generating a report of data from the output of a basic SELECT statement
• Using arithmetic expressions and NULL values in the SELECT statement
• Using Column aliases
• Using concatenation operator, literal character strings, alternative quote operator, and the DISTINCT keyword
• Displaying the table structure using the DESCRIBE command
Restricting and Sorting Data •Writing queries with a WHERE clause to limit the output retrieved Using the comparison operators and logical operators •Describing the rules of precedence for comparison and logical operators •Using character string literals in the WHERE clause • Writing queries with an ORDER BY clause to sort the output •Sorting output in descending and ascending order •Using the Substitution Variables
Using Single-Row Functions to Customize Output •Differentiating between single row and multiple row functions •Manipulating strings using character functions •Manipulating numbers with the ROUND, TRUNC and MOD functions •Performing arithmetic with date data •Manipulating dates with the date functions
Using Conversion Functions and Conditional Expressions •Describing implicit and explicit data type conversion •Using the TO_CHAR, TO_NUMBER, and TO_DATE conversion functions •Nesting multiple functions •Applying the NVL, NULLIF, and COALESCE functions to data •Using conditional IF THEN ELSE logic in a SELECT statement
Reporting Aggregated Data Using the Group Functions •Using the aggregation functions in SELECT statements to produce meaningful reports •Using AVG, SUM, MIN, and MAX function •Handling Null Values in a group function •Creating queries that divide the data in groups by using the GROUP BY clause •Creating queries that exclude groups of date by using the HAVING clause
Displaying Data from Multiple Tables •Writing SELECT statements to access data from more than one table •Joining Tables Using SQL:1999 Syntax •Viewing data that does not meet a join condition by using outer joins •Joining a table by using a self join •Creating Cross Joins
Using Sub-queries to Solve Queries •Using a Subquery to Solve a Problem •Executing Single-Row Sub-queries •Using Group Functions in a Sub-query •Using Multiple-Row Subqueries •Using the ANY and ALL Operator in Multiple-Row Sub-queries
Using the SET Operators •Describing the SET operators •Using a SET operator to combine multiple queries into a single query •Using UNION, UNION ALL, INTERSECT, and MINUS Operator •Using the ORDER BY Clause in Set Operations
Manipulating Data •Adding New Rows to a Table Using the INSERT statement •Changing Data in a Table Using the UPDATE Statement •Using DELETE and TRUNCATE Statements •Saving and discarding changes with the COMMIT and ROLLBACK statements •Implementing Read Consistency •Using the FOR UPDATE Clause
Using DDL Statements to Create and Manage Tables •Categorizing Database Objects •Creating Tables using the CREATE TABLE Statement Describing the data types •Describing Constraints •Creating a table using a subquery •Altering and Dropping a table
Creating Other Schema Objects •Creating, modifying, and retrieving data from a view •Performing Data manipulation language (DML) operations on a view •Dropping a view •Creating, using, and modifying a sequence •Creating and dropping indexes •Creating and dropping synonyms
ABCO Technology offers a comprehensive program for OCA version 12C. Call our campus today 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. in STE # 588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304. Get certified for Oracle database OCA 12C today!
Washington DC. The former CEO of Equifax, Richard Smith is testifying before congress today sitting on the hot seat. Members of the congress and senate from both parties are grilling Mr. Smith with respect to the Equifax cyber-attack.
Senator ELIZABETH Warren spent time forcing Mr. Smith to explain why the company hadn’t updated its security software. The senator also wanted to know why the company failed to act after suspicious activity was discovered in consumer sections of their site six months before the cyber breach occurred? Congress was extremely upset about the fact several officers of Equifax sold shares of their stock ahead of the public when facts about the Equifax cyber breach became known to officials of the company six weeks before that news was revealed.
The officers who sold stock in advance of the public release made a nice profit on their sale of securities. It was just revealed that Richard Smith, Equifax’s former CEO delayed informing the company’s board of directors about the cyber-attack for at least three weeks after he learned of the cyber penetration. Several members of congress emphasize that both the technology and personnel exist to prevent such a cyberattack from occurring.
The technology and personnel exist in the field of cyber security. Intrusion prevention and detection devices are available and ready for installation. Many network professionals are not trained in the proper use of these devices. Cyber security is a field of information technology, which fixes this problem.
Courses including the CompTIA Security +, Cisco CCNA, Cisco Security, Certified Ethical hacker, Certified Information Systems Securities Professional, Linux Fundamentals and a thorough understanding of network servers will go a long way towards training network professionals in the use of cyber security protection devices. Job recruiters are on the lookout for network administrators who possess cyber security skills and certifications. The work environment is focusing on security because of the events, which have occurred over the past five years.
ABCO Technology offers a powerful Cyber Security program, which will prepare you to compete successfully in the cyber security field. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us by phone at: (310) 216-3067. Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for the federal funding.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu ABCO Technology is located at 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE #588 Los Angeles, Ca. 90304 Join a field of information technology professionals who are in demand today!
