Careers in Information Technology

An example of a retro Burroughs computer system

When I think about beginning a career in Information Technology, I think back to around 1984 when I was about 5 years old. My dad worked for the Burroughs Corporation as a Field Engineer. He showed me the computers where he worked, computers that had taken up entire rooms. I thought this was incredible. I remember seeing computer punch cards and plenty of dot matrix paper. Most computer screens were black with green font. I remember playing Wheel of Fortune with red, green, and yellow colors, choppy animation, and beeps for sounds and music. I was amazed by all of this technology at the time. Technology has changed immensely over the last four decades. The number of computer-related jobs has grown incredibly as well. 

Going into an IT degree, I have some ideas about what I want to do when I graduate. “Working in IT can mean a variety of different things. You can work in computer support, cybersecurity, data, cloud computing, and other areas (Coursera, 2022).” Many IT jobs out there deal with the topics we covered in our textbook.

Chapter 2 of our textbook covered hardware and software. One of the first IT jobs that comes up in an IT job search is computer support or tech support. These careers can start out as being an IT support technician, help desk technician, or supporting roles in other aspects of computer operations. The average salary for these careers is around $71,000 and the projected growth is 9%.

In Chapter 3 we learned about the Internet and the web. Chapters 5 and 6 taught us about computer applications and web and mobile apps. There are several jobs out there in Web Development. These careers include web developer, web designer, other developer jobs, and other engineering jobs. Web development jobs average $95k per year and have an expected growth of 13%. It is recommended to take courses in programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. We use several different websites every day. As the growth of the Internet continues and technology continues to grow, I believe that this field will continue to grow as expected.

Chapters 7 and 8 explained privacy and security. I have a coworker that is going to college for cybersecurity. I did not realize how important this career field was until I read these two chapters. I imagined that cybersecurity was mainly for government, banking, and other more sensitive information. After I finished reading these two chapters I had more of an understanding of the importance of privacy and security in the lives of everyone as they use their computers and smartphones throughout the day. There are many careers in cybersecurity with a projected growth of 33% and an average salary of $96k. Careers include information security analyst, cybersecurity analyst, engineers, managers, and even ethical hackers. As the attacks on our personal information and cyber attacks continue to grow, this career path will continue to grow in importance.

Cloud computing is another IT career field that continues to grow with an average annual salary of $119k and a growth of 27%. These careers include cloud engineers, architects, programmers, and consultants. Google and Amazon have cloud computing careers and require special training and certificates to get hired.

These were some of the career fields that I read about that I would be interested in. I am also interested in robotics and automation. How do I choose which route to go? The IT field offers steady employment, opportunities for career growth, and high wages (Indeed, 2021). Indeed recommends that you consider your interests in the IT field, like the careers I mentioned earlier. Then look to pursue a job in the area of technology, government, healthcare, banking, etc. Next, research education and certificate requirements, average salaries, projected job growth, work schedules, and work environments. Indeed recommends shadowing a professional in one or two IT specialties for one day or several days to get a better idea of that job. Completing an internship if available is another good way of getting a taste of a certain career.

I chose to enroll in an IT degree because information technology is everywhere. The field continues to grow. As I have learned recently, there are many different career paths to choose. The salary can be pretty good. I chose this degree because I believe I can find a job wherever I want to live and quite possibly work from home. My dad worked with computers for over 40 years without a degree. His experience and knowledge kept him employed until retirement. He worked mostly from home for the last 15 years of his career. Looking at his career with computers, I can see the possibility for a long an interesting career in the IT field.

 

References

Coursera. (2022, July 12). 7 IT Career Paths and How to Get Started in 2022. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/articles/it-career-paths-how-to-get-started

Indeed Editorial Team. (2021, March 15). How To Choose an IT Career Path. Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/career-path-for-it

Vahid, Frank, (2019, February). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy.

 

Network Security

From Introduction to Network Security Protocols

    As the Internet connects billions of users together, villainous people will attempt to carry out malicious activities. These security issues include security holes or vulnerabilities, computer viruses, Email spam, phishing scams, password cracking, and social engineering. Individual users can be targeted in multiple ways which could scam the user out of money, steal the user’s personal information, or have their computer infected by computer viruses. Most frequently, Internet users are subject to Email spam and phishing scams. 

    Email spam is “unsolicited and unwanted junk email sent out in bulk to an indiscriminate recipient list. Typically, spam is sent for commercial purposes. It can be sent in massive volume by botnets, networks of infected computers. (What is Spam (2022)” Spam that is sent by companies for commercial purposes can easily be opted out by selecting an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. Spam can also be used by people or groups with the intent of spreading computer viruses or botnets which could be used to cause a denial-of-service (DOS) attack on a targeted website. 

    A DOS attack is an outcome of botnets that have been installed on users’ computers without their knowledge. These computers will attempt to access or ping a website at a specific date and time, causing the website to become overloaded. Actual Internet users attempt to access these websites and are given a “Denial of Service” message. A ping flood attack occurs when millions of computers attempt to ping a website in a short period of time (Ping Flood Attacks, 2022). A ping of death is another DOS attack where pings are sent with malformed or oversized packets when using the ping command (What is a DDoS Attack? 2016). Ping of death attacks usually occur when the data packets in a ping exceed 65,536 bytes. Some reasons DOS attacks are used are to disrupt a company, hassle an organization, or for political reasons (Vahid, 2019).   

    Many email users are also the target of phishing scams. The designers of phishing scams are trying to get email users’ money or their personal information. One common money-making scam is the 419 scam or Nigerian scam (Vahid, 2019). It has been a while since I received and read one of these emails, typically an email from a Nigerian prince asking for some of my money so that they can move their fortune and later pay me greatly in return later. These phishing scams still work on a very small number of recipients, but the originators still make money off of these scams. In 2021, 36% of data breaches involved phishing (Kerner, 2022). Other phishing scams are sent out in the appearance of an email from a person’s bank, online shopping website, or utility company. For example, I have had emails allegedly from Bank of America stating that I need to log in for some reason and to use the link provided to enter my username and password. Looking closely at the recipient’s email address, I determine that it is not Bank of America, but a phishing scam. One should also look for bad grammar or misspelled words to avoid falling victim to one of these scams. 

    Statistics draw a bigger picture of how important network security is. From 2020 to 2021 security attacks increased by 31% (Kerner, 2022). In April 2021, Facebook was a victim of a data breach that cost them $553 million. Last year, $56 billion was lost in identity fraud. In the first half of 2021, there were 5.4 million DOS attacks. Being able to identify phishing scams and spam emails will help an individual computer user from contributing to some of these numbers. 

References

Kerner, Sean Michael. (2022, March 15). 34 Cybersecurity Statistics to Lose Sleep Over in 2022. TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/34-Cybersecurity-Statistics-to-Lose-Sleep-Over-in-2020

Ping Flood Attacks. (2022, March 28). Retrieved from https://securityboulevard.com/2022/03/ping-flood-attacks/

Vahid, Frank, (2019, February). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy.

What is a DDoS Attack? (2016, April 27). Retrieved from https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/types-of-ddos-attacks/

What Is Spam Email? (2022). Retrieved from https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/email-security/what-is-spam.html

Computers in the Workplace - Demilitarization of Weapons

Projectile/Mortar Disassembly System
 https://www.peoacwa.army.mil/2021/04/12/facts-projectilemortar-disassembly-system/

    I chose the manufacturing industry for this week’s post. I currently work at a plant that disassembles old chemical weapon munitions. I figure there are a lot more manufacturing jobs out there than there are "demanufacturing" jobs. I will compare the uses of computers at my current job to those in the manufacturing industry as I believe that the use of computers would likely be very similar.

    I work as a Control Room Operator that operates many different systems, including fluid systems, HVAC systems, and systems that disassemble munitions. Many of these systems can be controlled remotely with little assistance from operators out at the equipment. As Control Room Operators, we use computers to control this equipment, take readings on this equipment, make log entries on this equipment, and visually observe this equipment. We all need to have a basic knowledge of operating Windows. Where our IT department comes in is maintaining and updating these computers. There are different server rooms on site that the plant needs to operate. For example, CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) has its own servers that store video footage from several cameras for the last month and has additional storage space for archived footage. In addition to CCTV, Automation has a server room for operating equipment throughout the site and recording data on this equipment. There is the Automation aspect of all of this equipment. They create, maintain, and troubleshoot the computer codes that run the equipment. (The equipment that I seek help from Automation the most can be found at the 6:45 mark of this video PCAPP Technical Overview:

    These servers also store data for the equipment for the last few weeks. One example is the boss’s office across the hall from the Control Room. I can control the temperature of his office. I can also bring back historical data on the temperature of his office over the last day. There is another group of servers on site used for all of the other workstations around the site that are connected to the Internet. These servers are all monitored frequently and updates are performed periodically.

    I can picture the need for everything I just described to be used in a manufacturing setting. There is the need for servers to store all this information and hold the code that runs the equipment. In a manufacturing setting, this equipment could be controlled and updated by someone far away from the site. “Smart manufacturing uses Internet-connected machinery to monitor the production process. This allows machines to communicate with each other via the Internet and work together to reduce errors and improve the workflow in the manufacturing plant (“The Role of IT,” 2019).” If multiple factories had the same new equipment, the programs to run that equipment can be sent through the Internet. Revisions can also be made over the Internet.

    I see the need of disassembling old munitions continually decreasing. I see little to no jobs in this field in the next ten years. I do see the need for IT in the manufacturing industry. As long as there is a need for manufacturing, there will be a need for the IT and Automation associated with it.

References:

The Role of Information Technology in Global Manufacturing. (2019, September 20). Retrieved from https://www.global-imi.com/blog/role-information-technology-global-manufacturing#:~:text=In%20simpler%20words%2C%20smart%20manufacturing,workflow%20in%20the%20manufacturing%20plant. 

Traveling Through a Network

Gamio, Lazaro, (2015, May 31). How data travels across the Internet. The Washington Post.

    This exercise was my first time using the ping and traceroute commands. I found this to be very interesting. To begin either of these commands, using a Windows OS, right-click on the Start button. Select “Run” and then type in “cmd.” This takes you to a command screen. This is where you type in either “ping” or “tracert” (short for traceroute), a space, and then the website. 

    PING is the abbreviation for “Packet InterNet Groper.” When you ping a website or IP address, you send 32-bit packets of data out and hope for a reply. A successful ping will result in four replies that echo the packets of data sent out and the response time. I tried this for four different websites that I frequent; Google, Yahoo, Motoringfile, and KRDO (a local news website). These pings resulted in minimum, maximum, and average times for all four packets of data sent out. Google had an average round trip time of 15ms. The second website that I pinged was www.motoringfile.com. I pinged this site in particular because it usually takes longer to load than most websites. I had an average ping time of 135ms, which was much slower than Google. Yahoo was also slower than Google with an average of 41ms. When I pinged our local news website, www.krdo.com, I had a result of 12ms. I was surprised by how quick that site was.

Next, I ran the traceroute command on these four websites. The result of running a traceroute command gives you the path a packet of information goes from your computer, through your router and modem, through the internet, and to the recipient’s ISP (Gamio, 2015). All four of my websites had 12 “hops” along the way. The far right column in the results is the IP address for each step along the way, starting with 192.168.1.1, your default router address. Google had quick results. Motoringfile had some slow times going from one place to another, which I wasn’t surprised with after running the ping command on that website. I also had a request that timed out. I only provided the traceroutes for Google and Motoringfile. Yahoo! and KRDO gave me similar results to Google. 

Next, I ran these two commands on websites far across the world. I found a Japanese social media website called Mixi. The average ping for this website was 142ms. I was not too surprised with this result as if figured there would be many more stops along the route. Next, I ran the traceroute command. I had several results that timed out. This would be the reason of the long ping time. The next long-distance website that I chose was the President of Ukraine. I had an average ping time of 32ms. I was surprised with this result. I found that the number of hops when running the traceroute command was 16 with only two results that timed out. 

After running these commands from my home computer, I am curious to see how these times and routes compare when I run these commands from a computer at work. I am also curious to see what other students have found and what my results for their websites would show. 

References:

Gamio, Lazaro, (2015, May 31). How data travels across the Internet. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/security-of-the-internet/bgp/#:~:text=confirming%20successful%20delivery.-,The%20Internet%20works%20by%20chopping%20data%20into%20chunks%20called%20packets,in%20a%20series%20of%20hops.&text=Entering%20the%20network-,Each%20packet%20hops%20to%20a%20local%20Internet%20service%20provider%20(ISP,network%20%E2%80%93%20usually%20for%20a%20fee. Links to an external site. 

Vahid, Frank, (2019, February). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy.

Documenting One Day in My Life

    This week I documented a normal work day in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I started by writing down a list of 10 activities that I perform on a typical day of work and what times those events occur. The description of my work day was very different in each of these three programs.

    The version of my day Microsoft Word was about a 500-word story describing my day. I could probably go on and on listing the details of every event of my day, but I wanted to keep it short. I could have added a table with the schedule of events, but I felt that was more for the Excel portion of this assignment. 

    Using Microsoft Excel, one day in my life was made very brief and concise. There is no story here. It is just the details of the hours that I spend on each of these activities. If every day of my life was like this, it would be all work and no play. I could have used the table that I created here in my Word document. The table and the pie chart would have been nice graphics in my PowerPoint presentation as well.

    I created my PowerPoint presentation as if I were discussing my day in front of a group. I tried to be fairly short on my text as I would tell a story similar to that written in my Word document. I think that the focus of a PowerPoint should be graphics with brief descriptions in text. I was limited in what I could use here for graphics because we are not allowed to take pictures at work. The pictures that I did use were from a government website. I tried to make the PowerPoint tell a story, but if I were presenting it, I would give many more details. 

    I have used all three of these programs many times in the past. It has been a while since I have used PowerPoint. I think this was a great exercise in using these three programs and how differently the three can be used to tell the same story. I have never thought about using Excel to tell a story of one day in my life, but I think that the pie chart would be a very nice touch. Personally, I would want to use something between the Word version and the PowerPoint version. 

 

References

Vahid, Frank, (2019, February). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy. 

Mobile App Critique - Hiking Project

    I chose the Hiking Project app for this week’s discussion. I moved out to Colorado about eight years ago. I have always been interested in hiking and enjoying the beautiful scenery in this state. I started looking for hiking trails just by driving around and seeing what trails were in the area. I have also purchased books and maps to find adventures. I downloaded and tried out another hiking app before I found Hiking Project. I like many things about this app and very few improvements that I can think of.

    First, this app is 100% free to download and use. There is no purchase price, and there are no ads. This app is actually owned by REI. Users are potentially paying for it by shopping at REI, but it gets you out exploring, and I think that is exactly what REI has intended with this app. They also have MTB Project for mountain bikers and Climbing Project for rock climbers.

    The second thing that I love about this app is that it works even where there is no cell phone reception. My favorite experience with this app was when I used it for hiking Maroon Bells Four Pass Loop near Aspen, Colorado. I hiked with six other people. We got into White Forest National Park on a Sunday and said goodbye to cellphone reception. We camped and set out on a 4-day backpacking trip the next day. This entire trip we had planned was one of the trails in my Hiking Project app. For this entire trip, I had no cell phone reception and was unable to charge my phone. Every time I pulled up this app it was accurate with where we were on the map. I was impressed with this app from this point on. There have been numerous other times since this adventure that I have turned to this app to figure out if I need to turn left or right, how much farther I have, or just to help me know if I am still actually on the trail.

        The third thing that I will mention is that this app is easy to use. After downloading the app, you will need to download whatever state you plan on hiking. You can also download trails outside of the country. I have used it in the U.S. Virgin Islands (I know, it’s still in the U.S.) and found a few good hiking trails there. Next, you can search for hiking trails with different filters. I usually forget about this and just search for a new trail in an area that I haven’t explored yet. Another thing to look for on the map is a gem. This particular gem is on just about every calendar of Colorado. After I find a trail that I want to hike, like the Maroon Snowmass Trail, there is useful information below about the trail. This trail can only be accessed by shuttle at certain times, which the app actually mentions. At the far bottom, there is a box to click on for driving directions, which comes up in Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze on an iPhone. The directions haven’t failed me yet like they had once before on another app.

 

   I have really enjoyed using this app over the last 6 or 7 years. I really have a hard time picking out three areas for improvement. I visited their actual website www.hikingproject.com while I had some spare time at work and was looking for new trails to hike on my upcoming days off. Each of the times that I have looked at trails to explore this way, I would run into some issues navigating the website. I would have to go back and explore the website for a while to find the exact details of suggestions for changes to make on their website. Next, I have never created an account for this app. I am not exactly sure what benefits there are from logging into the app, but I haven’t chosen to. I wish there was a way to check off the trails that you have hiked already and be able to see some sort of visual representation of that while looking at the map. Maybe that is something that you get when you do log in. The third thing that I would like to recommend is to be able to search for their “gems” easily from an iPhone. When you visit the actual website, you pick the state where you want to hike. One of the first things that you see there are the “gems,” followed by “recommended routes.” These gems and recommendations look absolutely amazing on the website. I think they can make these gems and recommended routes easier to find while using the app. Another recommendation that I had was for the app to give the actual location of the trailhead instead of just sending the user to Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze. I like to be able to easily put the destination into my car's navigation instead of having to look down at my phone on the drive there.

    Overall, I am very pleased with this app. I think that I should get around to logging into it and exploring it more both on the app and the computer. I might find some of the things that I was wishing for.

     

Programming Languages and an Exercise in Scratch

 

During the first week of class I learned basic information on programming languages in our reading assignment in our textbook TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy (Vahid, 2019). I learned about machine language, assembly language, high-level language, and Python. Each of these sections had an exercise to familiarize the student with the program languages. With practice and application, I am sure that I would have a better understanding of each of these programming languages. After learning the basics of these programming languages, I had some practice programming in Scratch. This is the animation that I created using Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/711340749/

I started playing around with Scratch when I had a few minutes of free time at work the other day. I noticed that the commands were basic and easy to piece together, but I could not figure out how to start the program. A couple days later I sat down to work on this assignment and found a way to resolve this problem using “Tutorials” the top of the screen and a video, “Getting Started.” I found “Events” as the fourth option down. This is where I would find the buttons that would make things start to happen. My initial idea was to create a simple animation that is started with the click of a button. There are other options to start events, but I just wanted a simple click of a single button to start the animation. Now that I determined how to start my sequence of events, I needed a character for my animation. At the bottom right of the screen, there is a little cat face, which, when selected will take you to a variety of “Sprites” or people, animals, and objects. I selected animals and found my character “Dinosaur3” a pterodactyl, my 3-year-old son’s favorite dinosaur. Next step is animating my character.

            Initially, my idea of making a pterodactyl fly from one part of the screen to another part of the screen seemed pretty easy. The pterodactyl would start at the top right corner of the screen by putting in coordinates that I selected. The next command would send my pterodactyl to the bottom left of the screen. This part was simple, but the pterodactyl’s wings were still during this flight. Instead of turning to the tutorials or YouTube, I tried to solve this one on my own. I found at the top left of the screen, in “Costumes,” there can be multiple different graphics for your character or item, and you can edit the graphics and create your own new costume. Here, I found two different positions for my pterodactyl and going back and forth between these two would show my pterodactyl to flap its wings. Going back to “Control” I found a command to repeat this flapping animation multiple times. At first my pterodactyl would glide across the screen to the bottom left and flap its wings in that location. I found that I needed to start another group of controls where I would have one to move the pterodactyl and the other to make the pterodactyl flap its wings. Eventually I timed everything where the pterodactyl flapped its wings while flying.

            I learned quite a bit in Scratch already at this point, even adding a “caw” from my pterodactyl, but I needed to add something else to the animation. I added another “Sprite” to my animation, an unsuspecting snake. The snake would also have two groups of controls for its animation. The pterodactyl would grab the snake and fly off with it. The snake would then fall to the ground and slither away. Besides making the timing of my animation work together, I had very few issues from this point on. There were always the tutorials and YouTube if I would get into a bind with my project.

             After playing around with Scratch for a few hours, I thought back at the programming languages that I read about in our textbook. Scratch was most similar to Python than the other programming languages. They are both very user friendly when it comes to putting in commands. Tim Statler wrote in Comp Sci Central, “Python is a very high-level programming language because its syntax so closely resembles the English language. Higher-level means it’s more readable to humans and less readable to computers. Likewise, Lower-level means less readable for humans and more readable for computers (Statler, 2022).” Higher-level programming languages have slower execution times because the programming has to be translated into machine code for the computer to process it.

 

References

Vahid, Frank, (2019, February). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy.

Statler, Tim, (2022). Comp Sci Central. Is Python a High-Level Language?