Blog

I’m not sure if this has anything to do with my 7150 project, but I have created a Caswell Family Stories blog here https://www.tomcaswell.com/blog/ I grew up in a family of eight, and we had some fun times. This blog is a place to share fun family stories from when we were younger and lived overseas. We had some unique experience growing up in the Foreign Service, and I don’t want to forget them.

This blog also gave me a reason to try out WordPress, and I am sold! I’ve been getting excited about how WordPress makes blogging more organizeable. This will be important for my learning objects project when I need to categorize different types of basic computer FAQs. David, if you are reading this, do you know of a WordPress plugin that can generate crossreference links automatically within different articles?

Maybe I am just new to blogs, but I am used to the kind where someone vents their extreme feelings about some political issue and maybe in a few days they get a comment or two. And then there’s my brother, Bob, who creates a post that generates enough traffic to slow the Internet down to the point that people notice. Sheesh! His one thread is bigger than my whole blog!

*regains composure*

OK, I’m back. I think that was my first time ever experiencing “blog-envy.” All I can say is, “Way to go, bro. Google Ads was built just for you.”

This was borrowed from David Wiley’s site, iterating toward openness – Great Screencast on Screen/Podcasts in Education: “I never thought I’d see a screencast in a screencast, but that is just what I got watching this fabulous presentation about using screencasts, podcasts, blogs, etc. in support of education. Any time you come away with brand new ideas about how to be a better teacher, more efficiently, you have to share!”

I had to throw this on my blog for the hundreds of fellow teachers who are subscribed… the silent, lurking masses that do not register on any of my counters…. Anyway, this screencast is a must-see for anone who is new to this stuff, especially for teachers seeking new ways to reach students. I loved that the podcast of the quantum physics lecture ended up on the top 100 podcasts list. People are curious. One more thing: this screencast didn’t work for me in Firefox, so you may have to use something else.

It is more important than ever for Internet consumers to make sure they are on secure (https://), verified connections before doing any kind of business online.

I received a spoof email yesterday from “PayPal” that was so convincing that I almost fell for it. I am concerned that many other people will fall for this particular scam because it is so similar to a genuine PayPal email. Here is what is makes this spoof trickier:

• It didn’t ask for personal information in the email itself. These kinds of emails are a more obvious form of what is called “phishing.”
• The email, which didn’t have my name on it (another clue I missed), told me that my PayPal account been accessed from a foreign IP address and that I needed to verify my account.
• The site it took me to when I clicked the link looked EXACTLY like www.paypal.com’s log in screen. Most of the links on the page still linked to PayPal to make it even more convincing.
• Everything it the website asked me for seemed legitimate EXCEPT it also asked for my credit card’s ATM PIN. This was very suspicious, and I stopped filling out the form. I don’t know for sure if my PayPal account info or credit card number were compromised, but I decided to play it safe and close both accounts.
• After looking more closely, I also noticed that I was not on a secure connection (https://), even though the spoofers had cleverly inserted the same yellow lock graphic that is on PayPal’s secure site. Although the web address contained the name paypal.com, it was preceded by this combination of numbers: 61.109.176.5 (an alternate IP address).
• I looked up the spoofer’s IP address (61.109.176.5) using WhoIs, and it belongs to Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, located in Australia! Sound “phishy” enough?

In the past I have received legitimate emails from PayPal asking me to go through a similar verification process, so I was fooled by this copy-cat spoof email and website. Beware that spoofers are getting trickier!

Above is a screenshot of the fake PayPal log in. It looks and works just like the real one, except you are not on a secure connection. (It’s hard to see in the screenshot, but the address starts with “http://” and not “https://”)

Once you “log in” (and they get your PayPal password), you are prompted to update your credit card. The only thing that has been added here is a space at the bottom for you to enter your ATM PIN number. Once they have this information, they can go to town on your credit card!

My two-year-old just ate his 5th cheese stick in about 15 minutes. He seems fine, but is there a legal limit? Last week it was the same thing with apples. So much for moderation in all things…

“Pork Chop” in Logan, UT and again at Laguna Beach, CA