The Multitasking Generation

Recently a co-worker made a comment, that reminded me of an article I read close to a year ago. The subject of the article was that today's generation multitask way to much. Now growing up, I had always heard that being able to multitask was a great skill and very beneficial when one gets older. Well the article I read states that this generation multitasks way to much, and that our brains are being wired to be in a constant state of multitasking. Think about your typical teenager, or refer the picture I included with this post (taken off my desktop btw). Most teenagers are sitting on the computer, listening to music, loading music onto an ipod, talking on the cell phone, playing a game, looking at pics, looking at a social networking websites (facebook, etc.), all of this at the same time.

Doing a lot of things all at once while being on the computer may seem second nature, at least it does to me, but it's wiring our brains into a constant state of multitasking. Even when we aren't multitasking, we are expecting some kind of interruption, and unconsciously wait for it. The interruption can be a phone call, text msg, or an email. The problem with this, is that people lose the ability to focus on one task at a time, because we are too busy either working or looking for another task to do at the same time.

My generation is a part of this, I see it in friends, and in myself. Although I don't feel as negative about it, as the article did. I myself can be working on multiple things at once, and still stop every so often to check my phone, email, or facebook. It's a habit, and more so, a natural thing for me.

A lot of us study easier when we are listening to music. That's the only way I can study, if it's not their in the background, I can't concentrate.

There is really no solving this problem, if you want to call it a problem. I see it more as the way society is changing. It may be for both the better and the worse, but that is up to your own beliefs. I just wanted to share a little something that most of us do now, and that you may do yourself without even realizing it.

SSL (security socket layer)

SSL, what is that? Have you ever noticed while browsing the web, the 's' in https://etc.etc. When the s is sitting there, that means you are using an encrypted connection. So all data you send out to the web server is locked, and the website has the only key to unlock it. This is really nice when doing online banking, as you don't want anyone listening on your network trying to intercept your banking data. If a hacker is on your network, listening to all of your internet traffic, he wont be able to read the data when you are using SSL.

Well there exists a little vulnerability with all web browsers, that can make you think you are secure, while you're actually not. Sometimes a website wont give you the s at the end of the http until you go to login. You may think that's secure because your data is now being encrypted, but that damage has already been done when you visited the site without the s. A hacker can sit between you and the website, a man in the middle, and intercept all data between you and that website. When you first visit the website, you send the request to the hacker, who forwards it onto the website, who then responds back to the hacker, and the hacker forwards the response to you. So when you click that secure login, you actually tell the hacker you want the secure login, who then talks to the website and gets himself a secure login. He/she then spoofs a secure login back to you, so that you are thinking all of your data is being encrypted. But actually, it's as clear as day to the hacker.

So how do you stop a hacker from being the man in the middle? Well, if you had encrypted the data when you first visited the website, he would have never been able to spoof the secure login, and he'll be locked out completely.

Protect Yourself!

So my advice to you, when you visit a website, no matter what site it is, hand type that s at the end of http and press enter. Most websites support SSL, but you'll be surprised how many don't automatically load with it. Gmail doesn't use SSL unless you set in the options that you want it to. Another suggestion of mine to save you from hand typing that s in all the time, is to bookmark the page with the s in it. That way every time you click the bookmark, you automatically go to the page using SSL.

I implore that anyone reading this, whenever visiting a site that contains personal information, or takes a login and password. Especially when you are on a public hot spot, like star bucks. In one day, it has been possible to record as many as 1200 different pieces of personal information off of a public wifi. That was simply a person sitting with a computer running software, that listens to the net chatter. It could have been negated if people would be using the SSL.

What do you use?

As some of you may or may not know, your browser gives certain tidbits of information away, as you browse the internet. Some people would be unnerved to think of that fact, but really, it helps the internet work for you. Some information that is given away would be: the type of browser your using, your operating system, and your IP address. We can go deeper, but I'll leave it at that.

Well, if you haven't noticed, I keep a site tracker at the bottom of my blog that tracks the amount of users who visit. I get an email every friday of that weeks amount of visitors. It's easy to identify the trends, I get more viewers when I post more, and less when I post less. More visitors visit a post in my blog from a google search, than they do visiting the blog page. Most blogs have this kind of feature, because most people want to know if they have anyone visiting them at all.

Last night as I was messing with my tracker, I learned a couple more statistics that the free one I have provides me. I thought some of them were interesting, and so I'm sharing them with you below.

The first one here show's the percentage of what people use which browser. It's nice to see that a lot of you use firefox which I think is the most secure browser anyone can use. I'm not surprised to see that another big percentage of you are using Internet Explorer. You kind of have no choice considering it comes pre-packaged with Microsoft Windows.

The last thing I'm going to share with you, is the type of OS that most of you are using. I'm not surprised to find that the general population is using windows xp. We've had that OS for a long time now, but we really haven't had anything to make people want to move on. Vista was an utter failure, which is why I'm guessing it only has 1% of people using it. I am surprised at how many people are still on windows NT. That was an amazing operating system, one of the best, but the support for it dropped a long time ago. The 3rd most popular OS on there says other. By other I'm guessing that could be different distributions of Linux.

Paranormal Activity

Just last week I went and saw this movie with my brother, and it was totally awesome. I will actually be going to Davis today with my sister, to see it again. I did warn my sister it would scare her, but she still wants to see it.

Most of you have heard of this movie I'm sure. For those that haven't, imagine those ghost hunter tv shows, and kick it up a few notches. Basically the story goes that this girlfriend and boyfriend are living together, when strange things start to happen. The girlfriend admits to having had a ghost follow her around her whole life, since she was 8 years old. The boyfriend, a techphile, swears to find out what's going on. He buys an expensive camera to film the day and night happenings, with hopes to catch the "culprit" on camera.

The movie is very dry at first, and it's only about a quarter of the way in, that you start seeing anything substantial. In the meantime, the boyfriend keeps the movie going with his good humor.

This movie is in select theaters only and it's time out has actually been extended. Today was originally it's last day in the theaters. Paranormal activity had some very successful viral marketing. It had sat on a shelf already completed, since '06. It was originally intended as a straight to dvd film. A trial run was conducted, where the movie was played at 12 am, at select theaters. From there it was the fans demands and petitioning for the movie to play in their theaters, that the movie spread. This movie was made on a 10k dollar budget, and made in only 6 months in the directors home. Just goes to show how an original movie, with simple special effects, can still do very well.

I have had a couple of friends who said this movie was crap. Although, it seems like more love it, than hate it.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone. You'll either love it, or totally hate it. Just don't blame me if you can't sleep later that night. ;)

Kanon Wakeshima

My sister introduced me to this artist recently. She has a really unique sound. Besides her soothing voice, her songs are unique in that she incorporates her playing the chelo. If I were to compare this to an American band, I'd say Evanescence. They share the same kind of dark sounding orchestral kind of music. If you like Jrock, I highly recommend you take a listen.

Ants in my Pants

So here's my story of this morning before work. I woke up at 6:30 thanks to my cellphone. Our power had gone out due to the storm, not sure how long it was out for. I used a flashlight and propped the bathroom mirrors perfectly so I'd have enough light to get ready for work. I say my good byes, and zoom along to work. At least, zoom as quickly and safely the rain and traffic would allow. So when I get to work I notice a patch of ants on my leg. After brushing them off, I notice another patch of ants.. then another....and another. My pants were covered in ants! and I never even notice because it was too dark to see when I got dressed.

I keep all of my work clothes in the closet. Well the rain must have force the ants inside, which their favorite route is right through my closet. Here's to going home tonight to clean out those ants from my clothes.