September 22, 2012 Meeting at ITT

Our guest speaker was Grant Stanley, CEO of Contemporary Analysis in Omaha. Mr. Stanley founded this company in 2008 and struggled to make it the successful company it is today. They use math to analyze human behavior and predictive behavior.

Mr. Stanley coined the term Data Science to describe the title of the employees that are trained in this field. He estimated that 140,000 to 160,000 additional Data Scientists are needed country-wide to meet the needs of this growing field. The areas of study for this field is Computer Science, Complex Scientific Method and Statistics. As of now, no degree program is available, but this may change as the field grows. He calls this field multi varied analysis.

Grant shared a page from his website that shows what his company can do. He stated that one company's report would have been 600 pages. What Contemporary Analysis created was a page that had drill down areas to see all of the information on those 600 pages but contained on one page. Each area was very small but the drill down areas shows information that is much easier to read. There are charts, timelines, and trends for the customer to view. Each report is specific to the customer.

Grant mentioned two visualization programs that he likes. One is Tableau and the other is Highcharts. Both are great tools for anyone to use.

Another area that Grant discussed was Pre-attentive Processing. This is where the brain is processing information long before the person is aware of the processing. Another process they tend to use is skewomorphic (not sure of the spelling!), where they make an object look more familiar so they can spot trends quickly.

Mr. Stanley also stated that they have a blog, blog,canworksmart.com, where we can check out the visualizations and dashboard that they created.

The industries that are interested in the Data Science field are Insurance, Construction, Mining, Health and Life Insurance, Automotive, Production, NSA and Retail. Grant stated that the retail companies use this data science information to create surveys and how, when and where customers shop.

This meeting was very interesting and we thank Grant Stanley for coming here to talk to us.

Our next meeting will be October 20, 2012 at 1pm in Theory 4. See you there!

Meeting Notes from August 18, 2012 at ITT Tech

Jered Kuhfahl started the meeting by discussing TMG - Threat management Gateway and then talked about DPM - Data Protection Manager. Both are very interesting and useful programs for businesses.

Server 2012 is about to be - or has already been - deployed to the public. Not sure of the date of release. One item not included in this new server is DCPromo. Many people have used this nice little tool for AD. Powershell is making a comeback in Server 2012. Several web sites are renewing their training for this. Check it out!

Another topic was B-Z = Blackhole to ZeroAccess. A PowerPoint presentation by Richard Wang was shown. He is from Sophos Labs U.S. Blackhole Exploit Kit and ZeroAccess Root Kit are both attacks to networks.

Blackhole is a tool to gain access to a PC so it can install their software. It exploits security holes in other software. Blackhole sells their software to hackers so they can access a computer.

ZeroAccess adds layers of compression and encryption to hide their true purpose. This is a polymorphic packer which rolls several types of malware into a single package, such as an email.

For both of these, updates to antivirus programs and anti-malware programs is essential. Frequent scans by these programs is also necessary. It is wise to use nstat in a command prompt to see what ports are open that do not need to be open.

One our local members mentioned that a web site, www.hackernews.com, keeps their site updated to inform Network Administrators of the current trends. Check it out!

The next AITP @ ITT will be held on September 22, 2012. The meeting will start promptly at 1pm. Please try to be there by 12:30pm. And email should be sent out prior to the meeting. If you do not get an email, contact me with your information and I can forward it to Jered.

Hello! I am Cathy Liebgold and I am the new Secretary for the AITP @ ITT Tech. I hope all is well!

I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. I have 18 years experience as an Administrative Assistant but was laid off 3 years ago. (Still looking for a job!) I started part time classes at ITT 2 years ago and should graduate next June. My field is Networking. I really enjoy working with computers and learning as much as I can! So far I have enjoyed learning the new and different (to me) Operating Systems. Definitely looking forward to learning Windows 8 and learning more about Linux!!!

If you would like to suggest a topic for our meetings, just send me or Jered an email. We will do our best to get the information gathered for a meeting. My email is: cliebgold@email.itt-tech.edu. I am sure Jered has given his email address, but if you need it, I can get it for you! Have a great September!

August Meeting

This month we are getting back into the swing of things. Kids go back to school for the year and AITP holds a meeting with a great presentation from Subruto on Malware and Spyware. This month we also want to welcome Cathy Liebgold to the AITP as our newly elected secretary. We look forward to having Cathy be part of our team. She has years of experience in many areas and will greatly aid the group.

May AITP Meeting

Mays AITP monthly meeting. This month we will be going down to the AITP Omaha Computer Museum. We will be going to the Computer Museum this Saturday the 19th May 2012. Location is AIM Institute @ 19th & Harney at 1:00 PM on this Saturday. Please come out and take a look at the massive amounts of equipment that has been collected and how much things have changed and advanced.

April Meeting

AITP April 21st 2012


You are invited to the ITT AITP monthly meeting. This month I will be giving a presentation on PFSense. This is a free piece of software that allows you to turn an old desktop, server or any x86 hardware into a high power and quality router, firewall, vpn appliance and QOS box. I will be bringing hardware and installing a live demo. I will also have some extra hardware that I will be giving away in a drawing. Please come out and attend this meeting a learn a really cool piece of software. We will be meeting in the big lab at the new ITT Tech. The presentation will begin around 12:45pm.

http://www.pfsense.org/


See you there

February AITP Meeting

Please come out and join us for the February AITP meeting. We have the honor of hosting Ron Strawn and Llyod Hasche from the Board of the Omaha AITP chapter. They are here to tell us about INFOTEC and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. INFOTEC is the largest IT conference in the Midwest and is held down at the Century Link event center. They are usually looking for volunteers to help out and this is a great way to get your face out there and meet people in the field and it really can be a lot of fun too.

Hope to see you there @12:45