Don't Throw Away that Hard Drive

"When you upgrade to a new mobile phone or computer, how you discard your device impacts your security. Most people think that when they reformat their hard drive or restore their mobile device to its factory default settings, everything gets erased -- but that's not usually the case." [emphasis mine]

This statement above is what got my full attention when I watched a short video over at Udemy on the safe disposal of hard drives.  This course is part of a very digestible video series on Mobile Cybersecurity Awareness that was created by Eric Schwartzman of the Center for Digital Innovation at Howard Industries. I highly recommend watching it (and the other 11 lectures in this series) as essential learning for every mobile device user.  It won't even take up too much of your time; as you can see in the screenshot below, it's less than 4.5 minutes.

In the video, Schwartzman shared that MIT had actually conducted a study using over 160 hard drives that were disposed or resold to determine if these were really cleaned out effectively. They were able to recover confidential information like credit card numbers, medical records, social security numbers. Yikes.

6 Productive Things to Do Away from Social Media

Do you feel that sometimes your social network's feed is so full of new information, opinions, and negativity? It can get quite overwhelming, especially when there are hot topics that get many people firing on all cylinders. A study has recently found scientific proof why we would feel inundated while traversing the digital landscape. One way people deal with this is by doing a digital detox.

In late 2010, I did a 7-day detox from my entire social network and, because of work, used only SMS and email for communications. If I needed to research online, I tried very hard not to stray towards any of my social media accounts. Ironically, getting sore eyes in the last 2 days made the detox even easier. Remembering how refreshed my mind truly became after that week, it made me want to do another digital detox soon. But then I got to wondering about why I urgently felt like this -- do I simply need to purge all the bad vibes or, worse, am I already addicted to my online habits?

Think about this part I highlighted from the article "Social Media Detox: Identifying Addiction and Disconnecting From Your Newsfeed":

“You know social media is taking over your life when you feel worse after being on it, when you spend more time on it than planned, and when you forgo regular activities to continue browsing..." [emphasis mine]

If this rings true for you, then you're in luck, that article provides four very simple, very doable steps to deal with that stuff.  And to help you further, below are six other things you can do while you're weaning from your social media:

The Awesomely Honest 30s

image source

I love being in my 30s.

I feel that I'm nowadays less pretentious and more honest with myself about what I like and don't like. I know what I'm good at and I've accepted what I can't do. I'm more open-minded about not getting the weird stuff the kids are into these days (pretty sure my parents thought I was into weird stuff, too, when they were my age), but I'm also in a sweet spot now where I can understand my parents better (Pa and Ma - I'm sorry for being so weird).

Another reason for my loving the 30s is having a less harried perspective about priorities. You get better at choosing your battles and not sweating the small stuff. It's those kinds of life lessons that make you a lot more grounded and optimistic about the future.

Here are 10 very practical lessons from author Mark Manson to take with you through your 30s...

1. Start Saving for Retirement Now, Not Later
2. Start Taking Care of Your Health Now, Not Later
3. Don’t Spend Time with People Who Don’t Treat You Well
4. Be Good to the People You Care About
5. You can’t have everything; Focus On Doing a Few Things Really Well
6. Don’t Be Afraid of Taking Risks, You Can Still Change
7. You Must Continue to Grow and Develop Yourself
8. Nobody (Still) Knows What They’re Doing, Get Used to It
9. Invest in Your Family; It’s Worth It
10. Be kind to yourself, respect yourself

Read the full article here. Enjoy!

To Train or Not To Train

A big part of my job is to help design and develop training courseware in various formats. Lately, I've been wondering how much of the training is actually needed and how we'll know for certain that it was effective. I felt that we were creating too many training materials without being entirely sure about the objectives.

Those wonderings led me to finding a course called "Foundations of Instructional Design", which was facilitated by Learning and Performance Partners, Inc. (LPPI). The instructor & LPPI's prez, Armi Treñas, is an established Learning and Development (L&D) specialist who works with various major corporations and organizations in different countries. "Instructional Systems Design" (ISD) seems to be a fairly new concept in the Philippines and, as far as my recent googling has revealed, LPPI is the only ISD practitioner in the country.

In a nutshell, ISD focuses not only on what should be in a training course, but also on how to check that training really is needed; how much and what type of training is needed; and how to ascertain that its objectives have been achieved.

Here are some of my key takeaways from the ISD course:

Life's Little Instructions from a 95-year old

Found this delightful gem on Pinterest. Advice from a 95-year old on how to be happy through your short stay on this planet. A little collection of things many of us know, but often forget :)

Hope this cheers you up! Share the love! :)


View the original post here

posted from Bloggeroid

Better than Balloons and Sky Lanterns

Save Philippine Seas offers 10 easy, fun, and eco-friendly ways to celebrate...without using balloons and/or sky lanterns. Yes, it's possible! ;-)

Check out the cool infographic below. Share if you care! :-)

posted from Bloggeroid

GrabTaxi

It was midnight on a Sunday when I tried getting a cab through GrabTaxi. I live in a small gated community, so hailing a cab at midnight is almost impossible.

GrabTaxi's FAQs say there's a P70 additional charge to reimburse the driver for gas used to go to my pick-up point. I wasn't sure that's fair, but I let it go because I don't always need cabs at midnight anyway.

The cab came and I got to my destination about 20 minutes later with no issues. But that first experience of GrabTaxi's service convinced me that the P70 charge is fair. Here are some of my reasons why:

- GrabTaxi shows you an estimate of how much your fare (sans the P70) could be

- The service was quick at finding and booking the nearest available cab to your pick-up point. Maybe it was fast for me since I had booked it around midnight. I wonder how it fares at rush hours?

- The app also gives you a time estimate for when the cab will arrive. In my case, it was 2-3 minutes later than forecasted and it made me just a teensy bit disappointed. But the cab eventually arrived anyway and I thought nothing of it anymore. Although, I would've appreciated being called or texted by the driver that he'll be slightly late. The service had my number anyway. But on the other hand...

- The app gives you the option to call the driver (yeah, I should've called huh? :P)

- GrabTaxi also gives you the option to cancel the booking any time before the cab arrives

- The driver I got was very courteous and drove safely. He followed all the traffic rules! And it was midnight! :)) Tell me that's not a rare treat when riding in cabs in Metro Manila. I was so pleased with the driver that I gave him a generous tip.

Based on this first experience, yes, I will use GrabTaxi again. I hope it continues to be reliable!

Disclaimer: I am not a paid endorser of GrabTaxi. This is just my honest personal feedback.

UPDATE: Booked with GrabTaxi again on a Tuesday around lunchtime to go to Makati from Pasig. The driver arrived maybe 10 minutes later than forecasted, but I wasn't in a hurry so it was OK. Having said that, GrabTaxi should improve their ETA forecasting and compensate for delays due to city traffic and other factors. Maybe it would help if their dispatchers could also check with MMDA and other traffic info sources (like those LGU Twitter accounts).

Apart from that, the ride was uneventful (just the way I like it!), and the driver was again neat and courteous.

Coincidentally, the people I met that Tuesday also booked with GrabTaxi. They book cabs there far more often than I do, and they had just the nicest things to say about the service, e.g. "consistent". That's a very good sign :)

Have you booked with GrabTaxi? How was your experience?

posted from Bloggeroid

Catch the Catfish

Have you heard of the term "catfish"? Here's how Urban Dictionary describes it:

A lot of people attribute this term to the 2010 documentary, "Catfish". Go find it and watch it after reading this blog post ;-)

My friend was recently catfished. Well, almost. It was by sheer coincidence that I told her about "Catfish" and it made her realize that someone on her social network might actually be catfishing her. After doing some googling, she soon confirmed that her stalker was maintaining two separate Facebook page profiles to support his lies (both pages have been deleted) and he's actually a 50-something guy from another country 0_o

Catfishers prey on emotional vulnerabilities; it toys with the human need to socialize and to connect on a personal level. Here are some tips for protecting yourself against catfishing:

5 Don'ts in a Project

You might have heard of the term "risk management". In project management, risks are a given, yet they can be prevented and avoided with proper planning. But, what if the risk turns out to be, uh, you? If you become involved in a project with other people, of course you don't want to be the one causing problems, right?

Here are 5 things you should NOT do so you won't end up being the "weakest link":

Dear Cyclists

Last Sunday night, my family and I were in our car near Pioneer en route to EDSA when some guy on a bike hurtled out of nowhere on our righthand side and almost hit the side of our hood. Thank God my husband was able to avoid him and the rider also veered out of our way, but it was a very close call; we could've just as easily hit him.

The idiot wasn't wearing a helmet or any other safety gear, neither were there lights or reflectors on his bike. It irks me to think that if the rider had hit us straight on, we would have to pay for his hospitalization and God knows what else -- even if it was his fault! A similar incident happened to one of our friends sometime ago. A bike rider with no safety gear zoomed straight down a hill and hit the right side of his car. Our friend brought the guy -- a bloody mess -- to the nearest hospital and paid all his medical bills. He was so shocked and traumatized by what happened that he refused to drive again for a very long time.

It makes me wonder if the MMDA and traffic police flag down erring bike riders. They should; they're a hazard on wheels!

To everyone commuting on bikes, there are safety guidelines for bike riding. Please acquaint yourselves with them. Keep not just yourself, but also other motorists, safe on the road. Thank you!

Don't Be A Target for Petty Criminals

I got so close to getting mugged tonight.  I was sitting on a bench in a nearby mall while texting a reply to an important SMS.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy sit down on my right side at about a 45-degree angle towards me.  This shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary, except that something about the slow, purposeful way he sat down while staring at the mobile phone in my hand triggered an alarm in my head.  Maybe he thought I was too preoccupied with texting, but I could see that he was also checking out my wallet and another small gadget that I held tightly against my chest.  Too bad for him, my wallet is attached to a strap that I wear like a bracelet around my wrist.  I learned to trust my instincts long ago, so I immediately stood up and walked away quickly into the nearest store that I knew to have a security camera, hoping to discourage him from following me.

Tonight's close call reminded me of a short talk that was given by a security specialist a couple of days ago in my company.  I wish I had recorded that, but here are some of the tips that I remember from that talk:

Turning Semi-Vegetarian

I suddenly decided to be a vegetarian last Nov. 12.  Well, to be honest, I couldn't turn into a 100% vegetarian because I love meat too much.  But, not so much that I can't not give up pork and beef entirely.  Since Nov. 12, my only sources of protein have been chicken, fish, eggs, soy products, and legumes, all of which I haven't been eating a lot of the past 2 weeks as well.

After only a week as a semi-vegetarian, I didn't think my new diet regimen would already make any difference, but then I started noticing something new about myself:

Challenges of Breastfeeding

Because a friend and I decided to create a video documentary on wet nursing for our undergraduate thesis, we learned everything a mother needed to know about breastfeeding and breastmilk years before we ourselves became mothers.  This stock of knowledge has enabled us to help dozens of friends and relatives with their own breastfeeding issues over the last decade or so. From these experiences, despite tons of articles on the topic, I've also learned that there are some things about breastfeeding that you will only find out after the baby has arrived:

Reaching A Point of Clarity

"Knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to focus on." - Warren Buffet

Another sleepless night found me staring up seemingly blankly at the ceiling but, inside my head was chaos -- a brew of ideas that kept churning, mutating, bubbling, and glaring at me.  It was stressful, to say the least, because there is only one me but I have all these plans and dreams.

There was only one solution.  It was obvious and I'd known it for days, but I wasn't ready to face it until last night.  However, the dizziness inside my head had begun to manifest physically; I was experiencing tunnel vision and a growing intolerance towards other people's demands of me.  Ms. Congeniality is out, Ms. Grumpy is in.

The solution was to detoxify.  By definition, it means to remove impurities or toxins.  But, in my case, it means re-evaluating my to-do list, reviewing my plans, and -- as sad as it makes me -- letting go of some things.  To be fair and right about how I detoxified, I made all the ideas/projects in my head go through a three-part filter:

Dealing with Newly-Wedded Woes

This is the second of a two-part blog post about love (read the first one here). Not just because this month the world celebrates Valentine's Day. Recent events and realizations inspired me to write these posts. I hope they'll do some good :-)

People get so excited about the wedding, busying themselves way too much with the details, that they don't see the wedding as really just the sendoff party for the long and crazy adventure that is marriage.  I wish someone told me this; during our first four years of being married, we were at each other's throats and there were so many times we wanted to just drop the whole thing.

We celebrated our 10th year
anniversary in Boracay

Now, we've been married for 10 years, and I can say we've achieved cruise mode, but we still slam into bumps from time to time, thankfully not as often as during the earlier years.

It's just as well that we experienced these by ourselves, so that we are now able to share these nuggets with soon-to-be-weds.

How Valuable Are You?

This is the first of a two-part blog post about love (read the second one here).  Not just because it's Valentine's Day next week ;-)  Recent events and realizations inspired me to write these posts.  I hope they'll do some good, especially for my single friends out there :-)

My guy best friend, Cary, used to whine about how difficult it was to date most of the single women at his church.  "Their standards are too high," he complained.  "I get that they have expectations -- and they should -- but what they want is just impossible."  I think I told him to look elsewhere instead (and he did. In fact, just last year, Cary married the girl of his dreams).

His gripe reminded me of a few girl friends who were doing the very opposite: setting their standards too low.  How low?  Let's just say that, we can blame it on pop culture and how it defines love.  Or worse, what we think pop culture is telling us about love, and then we muddle it further with our own dreams, wishes, and fantasies.  In short, we all form our own expectations of what love is supposed to be.

Holiday Traditions I Miss

Since becoming a mom, holidays have become...a chore.  It's true that Christmas is for kids.  But sometimes I wonder if I could turn the clock back again.

Boo to Sore Eyes

The last 2 days of my digital detox became so much easier because I woke up with sore eyes last Saturday morning.  I haven't had sore eyes since I was 7 years old!  I could not open my peepers at all; they felt like a swollen, throbbing mess, and I could feel a sharp pain on the undersides from time to time.  Had to wear sunglasses for two days and my curtains were drawn the entire time, because even a tiny flicker of light brought intense pain to my eyes.

Well, at least we saved on electricity.

During my days of darkness, my husband used a very effective home remedy for sore eyes that involved plain ol' green tea.

The Simplest Checklist for Expectant Parents

When I was around 6 or 7 months pregnant with my firstborn, I began doing what most first-time moms would do: create a checklist.  Jennifer Garner's character in the movie Juno called the phase "nesting".  New moms are expectedly excited about this part because, 1 - it involves shopping, and 2 - the activity kickstarts the mother mode in your brain, which will stay on forever.

But what most new moms are not aware of is that baby care shops know exactly how to capitalize on that excitement.  Before entering Babies 'R' Us for the first time, I was armed with a checklist and a budget, plus I went with my parents, who are sensible shoppers, so I was confident that I would find what I need and not go overboard.  But, once the automatic doors opened, all common sense seemed to fade away.  We were immediately sidetracked by the colorful onesies and nifty thingamajigs on display -- and we were only a mere 5 meters deep into the store!  It was a trap.  A most cute one at that.  But nonetheless a trap.  It was a good thing that I had a limited budget, so a couple of hours later, we came out of there bearing only the real necessities.

Two kids later and dozens of friends advised, I've now come up with the simplest "new parents" checklist ever.  Think of it as a "starter kit" with only the essentials.  Useful also for when you're invited to a baby shower or you have friends who are new parents.  I personally refer to this checklist when buying baby shower gifts (always a big hit: diapers, onesies, burp cloths, and wet tissue).

Are We Aging Faster?

I think it was in an old Reader's Digest issue from maybe a year ago that I read about a 50-something year old woman, whose doctor declared her healthier than her 30-something year old son.  Of course she would be, I scoffed, life was simpler then.  But now I'm wondering if that is all there is to it.

Was the daily routine of life really simpler back then, or are we just not as mindful as we believe we are about our health nowadays?