Final Blog Entry

Well the end has come finally and this is the end to another course with UMUC. This has been a fun and informational course. I truly enjoyed the mini-projects and discussion provided by Dr Pang. Great use of current technologies which we face today and I believe this has provided me with a more complete view of these technologies. I would recommend this course and instructor to others and they truly will enjoy the outline Dr Pang provides. I wish the best of luck to everyone in the future and hope to see you all in another course at UMUC.

Week 12 Reflection

This is the final week of course work and the end to the semester. This week we had to create a social networking site and discuss what we thought was most beneficial to us during the semester. I find it hard to complete projects like the social networking site, because I do everything in my power to avoid sites like this, because I don't like wasting my time on them. However, I see the point on evaluating these type of sites to become familiar with this technology and the possible security vulnerabilities of them.

Week 11 Reflection

This was final exam week and I believe the exam was a great overall encompassing test. I appreciate the questions which I had to truly think on what would be the best for an organization for network security. Wish the best to all other students and truly looking forward to the end of the tunnel.

Week 10 Reflection

This week was dedicated to finish up our group projects. This was somewhat a pain due to not very much communication from other group members. It seemed we had to rush at the end of the week to quickly put something together for submittal. I wished we starting meeting as a group earlier in the semester and not procrastinating to the end. However, I believe we did a good job and just glad this week is over. I don't care much for group projects due to the dependancy on others.

Week 9 Reflection

Week 9 focused on Security and Ethics. This is an area I take personally due to my job profession. I focus on aiding network security and to help in the protection of data and information on networks. It was interesting to read more on user privacy. This has been a point of contention in various court decisions on if a user has an expectation of privacy on a company or government network. This is something for the lawyers to battle over and hopefully a more concrete decision is made and not a back and forth mentality. Overall, enjoyed this week and look forward to the end of the semester.

Week 8 Reflection

Week 8 was a week of reading and learning more about the Systems Development Life Cycle. This is a process I have had first hand experience on with the development of a investigative database. Upper management made it a point to ensure all users were part of the development and hand valuable input for the final product. It was interesting to see all of the intricate steps involved with the development of new systems or processes. Look forward to future discussions and topics.

Week 7 Reflection

Week 7 focused on Decision Support Systems. I enjoyed this topic, because I view this as a force multiplier and a concept than can enhance our analytical processes and decisions. I have personally worked and requested for these type of systems discussed. I review network logs and always need something to aid in the analytical processing and decision making of future decisions regarding network security. This is a hot topic in network traffic analysis and how to better review data and find the needle in the haystack, when a network has possible security issues.