Security is important!

April 20th, 2017

You may know this expression that goes “you can never be too safe”.

You don’t want to make your life crazy by using so much security you can’t get in to your email or website or your mobile phone.

A few things to keep in mind though are that you need good, solid passwords, different passwords for different sites, and a good way to recover your information if something happens to it.

Here’s one of my favorite types for creating a good password.

Make a sentence that you can remember.

Perhaps something like: Professor Williams is the greatest professor in the world

Now, just use the first letters from each word to create “PWitgpitw” Not too bad

To make this even better try replacing a letter or two with a number that looks similar to the letter. So, how about replacing that “i” with a “1”? Then you could have “PW1tgp1tw”

This is pretty strong, but you could make it stronger by adding a symbol or a number at either end.

So perhaps you could use a question mark (?) at the end (but I don’t think this should be a question!!)

But you could have a password that looks like this”PW1tgp1tw?” or add a number to the end, or beginning for “99PW1tgp1tw” or “PW1tgp1tw17”

For my turtle, I don’t need a lot of high tech solutions though. I just keep the rocks a little below where he can reach the top. It doesn’t stop him from trying though!

It’s not snow!

April 13th, 2017

Here we go with another semester of Web English. It’s a good thing for me, but also a little sad as I know this class is going to be dropped from the school’s curriculum soon.

I think this is still a very useful and necessary class, besides the fact I enjoy teaching it so much, so it is difficult for me to see it go away.

Anyway, it’s almost spring and the cherry blossoms are already fading. Yesterday while I was walking there were children trying to catch the falling petals like flakes of snow. The petals do look like snow when they really start to fall. They can cover the streets or the ground. Here’s a shot of the start of the falling petals.

The Remains of the day

January 16th, 2017

We had a bit of snow, and I do mean a bit. People here get excited every time there’s a flurry. It just makes me nervous to drive with them on the road 😉

I know lots of people are experiencing a fair amount of snow at the moment, so this would not have been enough to impress them for sure. Although the school sent out a notice to be on the lookout for any early morning snow and possible announcements for closing school today, that little bit of frosted flakes wasn’t going to be enough to slow anyone down.

That didn’t stop people from getting out yesterday though and doing their best to create some snowmen.

On my walk this morning I got a few pictures of what were mostly the remains of snowmen. Well, there’s one spot I’m not sure was a snowman, but I think it could have been. I took these photos on my way back so they were actually in a little better shape when I passed them on the way out. Not much better, but still better.

Enjoying the last of the warm weekends

January 12th, 2017

Last week the weather was really nice, although it is hard to remember that now with how cold it has become. That wind is really cold!

We had visitors from Korea who came to stay with us. They used to live her in Nagoya, but they returned to Korea to live about 5 years ago. Their family has been very close to us for many years, since our children were born. They have 2 sons, and the older one and mother came to visit. While the boys all went to play basketball with their friends, we went out to Morikoro Park to the skating rink.

I am not a good skater, but I can get around and help my wife while she skates. It’s great exercise 😉

We usually go there about once or twice a year, but I can’t remember the last time we were there. Maybe more than 1 year ago.

While we were there we also saw an interesting festival of cosplay. The weather was really nice for that, so people were outside on the hillside there and everyone was busy taking or posing for photos.

Anyway, it was a good time.

I didn’t do any cosplay, but I did take this photo 😉

 

 

Happy New Year’s for 2017

January 5th, 2017

Another year has passed and we’re already underway with 2017. I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday break.

This year was very quiet during the holidays for my family. It didn’t help that I was sick with a pretty bad cold, and still have the cough and running nose!

I’m not a big fan of making promises and new year’s resolutions. Most people don’t keep those anyway, and I also don’t think that we need to wait until the new year to start a new plan. It is a good marker for some people though, so if it works, than I’m happy for them.

I’m looking forward to a great year!