Posts by Jennifer Bean

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and another person who wasn’t part of the conversation suddenly chimes in? Maybe it was while you were in line at a coffee shop or at your kid’s sports game. Maybe even your phone chimes in when you didn’t realize you activated your digital assistant (in our house, we call our voice-activated assistant “faceless woman” in everyday conversation to avoid having her accidentally butt into our conversations when she isn’t invited).  Read more

Vulnerabilities or bugs in a computer system or software are common. No matter how diligent a software developer is, there is bound to be some type of flaw that is found after the software has been released. You aim for near perfection, but perfection cannot be guaranteed. Read more

Similar to most families in the Northern Hemisphere, besides being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, October is also a time of year where scary movies and pumpkin patches take centerstage. For us, we recently took our kids to pick pumpkins still on the vine, suffer through a very bumpy hayride and line up against the eight foot ruler to see “How Tall this Fall” our kids were. All of these activities were free (besides paying for the pumpkins themselves).   Read more

My family and I have recently started a weekly dinner and a movie routine, where we base the dinner menu around the characters or premise of the movie. For us, we’re counting down to an upcoming family trip, but I’m hoping to keep up this fun routine even after our trip. The excitement of the kids picking an envelope as we all watch with excitement to see which movie we will be watching that week — and the same anticipation from mom and dad to see what type of food they will need to prepare in the coming days. Oh, the fun of family traditions… but now to the security part of this story.  Read more

The other day, I was watching a local junior high school soccer match. One team was advancing down the field as the forward was calling out to his teammates where to go and who to cover. The other team was all crowded together just trying to get the ball. One team was focused on their strategy, while the other team was focused on one short term goal — get the ball. It probably isn’t hard to guess which team came out the victor in that game. The team focused on their short-term goal lost focus on their fundamentals — they didn’t think about what they would do if they got the ball or if their short-term goal wasn’t met and ... Read more