Virginia Cyber Aces State Championship

Cyber Aces Foundation is working with the Northern Virginia branch of Virginia Tech to host a Virginia statewide cyber competition, Cyber Aces Online, where students have the opportunity to receive online training, win top honors, and earn a place at the Virginia Cyber Aces state championship in the Spring.  The Virginia Cyber Aces state championship is a free statewide competition to discover and develop Virginia's top cyber talent.

This competition involves the students registering for Cyber Aces Online (www.cyberaces.org) starting 9/3 and ending 10/15. Students are provided with free online instruction in networking, operating systems, and systems administration. After a two- to three-week study period for each of these areas, students complete an online multiple choice quiz. The course is designed for anyone who has an interest in learning more about information security and the growing threats from cyber attacks. No special knowledge is required. All a student needs is a computer with Internet access and the ability to watch videos. Upon completion, the student will receive a certificate of completion. The top 50 to 100 performers from around the Commonwealth will be invited to participate in a NetWars competition in Spring 2014.

Best Note Taking Apps

Looking for some new apps?  Want a high-tech way to take notes?  Here are some hot apps that can help you get the best of both worlds…

1.   Penultimate – Hand-write notes right no your ipad.  To do this, you’ll need a stylus but, penultimate features smooth, realistic handwriting simulation with multiple paper styles and a variety of pen color options.  When done, you can search your text, save your ideas to Evernote, and share single page images or full PDF notebooks.  Cost: Free

2.   Bamboo Paper – Notebook – Also Hand-write notes right no your ipad but, what makes this app special is that bamboo paper has creates its own stylus - Wacom.  The app allows you to save your notes in Dropbox and Evernote and there is even a feature to allow you to post your ideas to Facebook and Twitter. Cost: Free or you can unlock the full version, which gives you unlimited notebooks for $1.99.

3.   MyScript Notes Mobile - Not only can you handwrite your notes, but you can turn your notes into text so that others don’t have to try to figure out your handwriting. Your handwritten notes are also searchable and you can look up definitions of words, or search for them on the Internet. The app also lets you use a wide variety of gestures to edit text and you can import PDFs for annotation, or add images to your document. Files can be saved to Evernote and Dropbox and can be posted on Facebook or Twitter. This is one of those apps that utilizes everything the iPad’s technology offers to create an exciting and inventive app. Cost: $7.99.

4.   Notability – Type and handwrite notes using this app.  It also includes a full-featured word processor with the ability to spell check, add bullet points, and more. You can annotate PDFs, so if your professor sends out a worksheet, you can write notes directly on the iPad without having to switch to a different app. The most useful feature of this app is that it records audio. You can record a lecture while taking notes. The app syncs what you type with what was recorded so that, when you go back over your notes, if something you wrote doesn’t make sense, you can tap a word and it will play back the section of the lecture that took place at that time. Cost: $1.99

5.   My Sketch Paper - This is less of a note-taking app and more of an idea-sketching app, but I felt that is was important to include it for our creative readers. Users can take notes using the text editor and freehand sketch ideas, or simply doodle in the margins. Cost: Free.

More can be found at iDownloadBlog.com.  Original article written by Lory Gil on April 23, 2013.  

Forwarding your Student Email

When juggling school, life, work, and family, it is very easy for important events and deadlines to get lost in the shuffle. When it comes to events and deadlines related to your schoolwork and life at NOVA, we try to keep you informed through this blog, Twitter, Facebook, and through emails to your student email account.

Your professor, the Financial Aid Office, the Business Office, and the Central Records Office will also send important communications that you would need to be aware of to your student email account. If, however, your student email account isn't the one you are used to checking every day, you might miss something important.

Thankfully, your student emails can be forwarded to another email address automatically, or you can set up your student email to receive emails from all of your other email accounts, so you can check everything in just one place.

To forward your student emails to another account, follow these steps:

1. Log into your student email account by logging into MY NOVA and selecting your student email from the list of choices
2. Then click where it says Settings in the upper right corner of the screen
3. Then select Forwarding and POP/IMAP from the top row of the menu
4. Select the Forward a copy of incoming mail to:
5. Enter the email address you want the mail forwarded to

Just keep in mind that all information which would be protected by privacy laws that an employee at NOVA would send you through email must be sent to your student email account to ensure a level of security. When you forward an email to another address, you take responsibility yourself for protecting your privacy regarding that information. Remember too, that your professor will need you to respond to him or her using your student email, so you may not be able to just reply from a forwarded email. Instead, you might need to log in to your student email account to respond.

ELI's IT Help Desk

Have a computer problem and don't know where to turn?

ELI's IT staff that can help...
Call the eNova Hotline at (703) 764-5051 or email ELIITSupport@nvcc.edu.

Google's New Privacy Policy

Did you know that Google’s new privacy policy took effect March, 1, 2012?

As stated in a report on Mashable.com, Google will now integrate information it collects about you from all your Google accounts. So instead of treating your YouTube, Gmail and Google+ accounts as separate entities, Google now sees you as just one user.
That should make it easier to target you with relevant ads.

If you think Google‘s new policy will let the company know too much about you, there are a couple of small steps you can take before Thursday to have some measure of control.

Clearing your Google History of web searches and pages visited won’t stop the company from collecting information about you. But it will prevent Google from sending you customized search results and will make the record of your searches and surfings partially anonymized after 18 months, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) advocacy group. You can also perform a similar maneuver with your YouTube search and viewing histories.

Here’s how to remove and disable your Google web history:

1. Sign in to your Google account.
2. Go here: https://www.google.com/history
3. Click the “Remove all Web History” button.
4. Click “OK.”
5. Your Google web history will now be cleared and remain disabled until you decide to enable it again.

Here’s how to cover your YouTube search and viewing tracks:

1. Sign in to your Google account.
2. Go here: https://www.youtube.com
3. Click your profile icon.
4. Go to the Video Manager section of your profile.
5. Click “History.”
6. Click the “Clear all viewing history” button.
7. Click the “Pause viewing history” button.
8. Go to the Search History section of your profile, located on the left hand column.
9. Click the “Clear all search history button.”
10. Click the “Pause search history” button to prevent future searches from being recorded indefinitely.

How do you feel about the new Google privacy policy?
Isn’t this the opposite of privacy?

YouTube EDU

Did you know that YouTube has a special "edu" section where colleges and universities from across the country post videos? You can find neat stuff there, from musical and dance performances to brief lectures from noted scholars around the country to commencement addresses and interviews with students.

The site can be entertaining, but it could also be useful if you are looking for resources to help you with class projects--for example, if you're taking a business class, why not visit YouTube EDU and look at what you can learn from the videos posted by Harvard Business School? Or, are you looking for inspiration for a project in an art or design class? Watch videos where other students share their ideas and projects to help you brainstorm. Are you taking a speech communication class and want to see good examples (and bad examples!) of public speaking? Listen to recent commencement speakers, like Michelle Obama at the University of California, or Brad Delson (of Linkin Park) at UCLA, at practice critiquing them.

What other ways could you use the videos you find on YouTube EDU?