DEV Community: JDailey

Day (17-2=15) of #100 days of health and study.

JDailey — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 02:28:59 +0000

Well, I'm making up my own rules, but I'm trying to be consistent. Today would have been my 17 of #100 days of health and study, but I was sick on the weekend, so it shouldn't count. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'm going with it.

15 of #100 days of health and study

I think a puffer fish is in my stomach. When I got home, I was exhausted from work: is it mental or physical? It can't be physical, as I didn't do anything physical other than surf a desk.

So mental it is. At this point, I need to do something physical before my day turns to crap. Laundry needs to be finished, so I did that. Helped a little. Turned on the computer and decided to do some stretches and a 60-second plank. I cheated after 15 seconds and went to my knees, but somehow I could still feel my stomach. Did some triangles after that and I'm awake. Damn it worked!

Off to do my studying, which I couldn't do when I was sick. Tomorrow I'm going to do stretches in the morning and maybe a plank, but if not, then I'll do stretches after work and a plank. It's good to have elastic goals according to Katy Milkman who studies behavior changes.

Today is Project Cost Management. I do this at work on my projects all the time, but this should be more in the weeds, or so they say. Studying more in depth, the concepts I learned prior to my Project Plus Certification with formulas and math, etc. I like the weeds and I like the finances too. Should be fun. You know, my fear that this would start feeling like "work" hasn't materialized, and this creativity between work and study seems to help more than was anticipated. As Seneca the Younger said, "We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

All the best.

Day 8 of #100 days of health and study.

JDailey — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 23:10:44 +0000

So far so good, but more work needs to be done.

As a recovering perfectionist, prior to being a project manager, I now look at errors and processes differently than I did in the past. Monitoring and Controlling this learning project, I have to remember you are entitled to the work, but not the reward. Somewhat paradoxically, if you put in the work, you have the best chance of receiving the reward. As Steven Pressfield said, "Put your ass where your heart wants to be." Whether it be a higher power or the probability improving as you put in more iterations; something outside ourselves (some people call it luck), the universe improves with smarter work. To use a legal term, perfected in the process for the benefit of the party.

The measurement of the online training is better than the measurement of the book training, because the book training involves story problems. Story problems are the bane of some people's existence. Improving familiarity with the way they are asking the questions will increase the understanding and improve the quiz scores. Make a note to push forward into another subject and work on the story problems by fast tracking the processes.

What about the health part of the #100daysofhealthandstudy challenge? My qigong is the same, but nothing in addition to that yet. At least the progress isn't getting worse. Witnessing older people in nursing homes underlines the importance of developing strength in your legs and keeping mobile, like waking, which I do. It will help contribute to living a better life.

Onward and upward!

Day 1 of #100 days of health and study.

JDailey — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 03:36:05 +0000

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. - John Lennon

A lot has happened since 2020... changed my focus, not my desire. Finally, I have a grove back since the pandemic. Inspired by the 100 days of coding, which I'll eventually do, but for now I'm doubling down on what I know - Project Management.

I do like being a servant leader in the industry I am in; however, I think I'll be more fulfilled in the IT industry. Why? I like it better. They put money into technology. Duh? You would be surprised how many industries don't understand technology in 2023. They understand capacity better, and they understand Project Management better.

Always working as a hybrid project manager, it is a unique position to do both traditional project management and adaptive project management in software development and finance. Finding my voice in a sea of chaos. What do you do for a living? Organize chaos.

I'm creating #100 days of health and study for myself. Trying to get some momentum, linking exercise to studying PMP. Wish me luck! I'll try and post as much as I can.

All the best, Joe

Passed the basics term. Looking forward to next term [WGU basics]

JDailey — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 13:35:59 +0000

Caught the programming bug. Can't do anything now but learning and have some great mentors. Learning syntax for modern C++ and why using vectors are better than arrays.

Top 5 tools on how to pass the WGU Network and Security – Foundations [the second time, oops]

JDailey — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 21:57:11 +0000

First, in my defense (since we think failures are things to be ashamed of not ways to learn), I had a grueling project that needed to be wrapped up at work. Like many businesses, too much to do and not a lot of time. That particular week I worked about 52 hours with no time off (literally for 5 months not one day except when I was sick). I was rearing to go and pass the test. After I took the Assessment I looked at my score and “Not Passed” was displayed!

What the hell; I haven’t failed a test since my day’s at Weber State University! I don’t even know the protocol. After wrapping my head around what just happened I do what I’m good at: analyze, divide and conquer.

This information is to give you a road map and won’t replace any of the material you use. All battle plans are tested in the field and this is no different (paraphrase of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder).

Your not alone
Well thankfully there is a course mentor/instructor and a program mentor. The difference is the former is an expert of the course and the later is an expert in the degree. After emailing my course mentor Roy and my program mentor Ramiro we developed a plan. They have cohorts, live and recorded tutoring, that helps simplify the large amount of information contained within the class. I watched all three of them. Also I read the book like getting ready for court- multiple times. Roy told me on the Course Chatter than when you are doing an activity there is a PDF that summarizes what you need to know so I downloaded all of those as well. More information below.
Re-read: wash, rinse, repeat
Reviewing legal documents is my day job and I’m not a lawyer. One of the best pieces of advice was from my lawyer co-worker Allison who said in brief the first time you read a document (book in this case) you are exhausted. Honestly many people in my office gave me the same advice. I like to think of this as the priming stage because it primes you mind to understand the information for the Assessment.

I’m a matrix nerd so I put everything in LibreOffice, an Open Source Project. (It works similar to Mircosoft’s SaaS Office 365). At this time I would take the Pre-Assessment to find the areas you need to work on. Start reading sections you don’t understand. After about the 3rd time doing this you’ll be ready to jump off a cliff… don’t jump off a cliff, but you should be ready.
Use Mnemonics
This will assume you already read the material or will after reading this article. OSI Security is broken into 7 categories: Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and Physical. A good mnemonic is: All People Seem To Need Data Processing.
Another challenge is the CIA Triad and the AAA framework. Both describe aspects of network security, but with all the “A” words I was getting confused on which was assigned to what. The Assessment (not a word in this group) intentionally tried to throw a few more words in the mix to ensure you knew what they were talking about.
I learned it this way: when you log into Yahoo mail they employ Multi-Factor Authentication (login, password and your phone). Since this was known prior to the class I made it into a mnemonic:
Multi-Factor Authentication leads to Authentication (A), Authorization (A), and Accounting (A) or AAA (notice the first two words start with “Auth”). The CIA Triad: Confidentiality (C), Integrity(I), and Availability(A). To be clear: this is only to learned how to put all the words together to memorize them. MFA, CIA, and AAA all have their separate sections. Once you learn this you won’t be bamboozled.
Course Chatter: Good advice
Use the Course Chatter to find out tips on passing the Assessment. One way to determine what you need to know is by asking past students. That is where I learned about the Cohorts (step one) and even how people from the industry passed the Assessment.
Kun X. passed the first time and wrote, “1. OSI layers (to the very detail as to what entails in those layers, such as which layer does segmentation, which does encryption, which deals with IP and MAC, etc) 2. network devices, what they do and which OSI layers they correspond to 3. Cables (all the subcategories of the UTC) 4. basic commands, I mean all of them and what they do.” He also wrote, “another thing I forgot to mention is the wordings of the questions. you have to pay attention to how they phrase the questions (it's almost like a comprehension test).”

I would add the first part of the book is for concept building and the second part of the book is for security building using the first half you learend. Furthermore, tie the type of security threats like ARP Poisioning and Smurf Attacks to the layer it is with. In this case they would be Level 3 or Network attacks.

Reading the Assessment Questions and testing basics

When taking the Assessment the first time I didn’t feel like I was taking a test for the same material I learned. That was because the Assessment, as Kun said, was like a comprehension test. Also read the question a minimum of two times. There was a couple of questions that led you believe one of the answers were true then the second sentence made you think a different answer was true.

I’m sure you’ve heard of testing basics: read each question, read all the multiple choice items, and finally make the most correct choice. That’s good advice, but I would also add normally my first choice is a correct choice; however, I went over the logic on some that seemed more gray multiple times.

Sometimes it comes to a best educated guess. For instance, you’ve read the question closely, you’ve eliminated two answers that were obviously wrong, now you vacillate between two answers and then make the best choice, pull the trigger, and move on. At times the next question would make you think of the prior question as if it was filling in on some of the missing information. Go back and look at the prior and re-read it. Be careful here. I always assume my first answer was correct and only change it if one looks more defined then the last time I answered it. I think I only changed my answer twice. Sometimes I re-read the question and realized I read it wrong the first time then it became more obvious.

With a plan of attack prior to the Assessment, using all tools at your disposal, and framing the test correctly who knows, maybe you’ll pass it the first time.

Good Luck and all the best, Joe

Passed Pseudo Programing [WGU basics]

JDailey — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 02:12:55 +0000

Interesting class. Explored ideas about loops and if statements using pseudo code so you can understand the concept prior to using the script. Since I've done some of that in C# already it wasn't too bad. Covered System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Universal Modeling Language (UML). I've been doing Project Management since 2011 and excited this was unique talking about different types of waterfall or agile approach when creating software. I can see why the agile approach would be better, because if you have a product and users will pay for it they obviously want certain features. The agile approach will work better when releasing version of said product.

Next is Network Security Foundations or Web Development Foundations.

All the best.

Passed the test, next class that covers Psudo Programing [WGU basics]

JDailey — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 14:20:34 +0000

The first class was defined terms for IT professionals. Passed the exam. This class is Psudo Programing to learn loops and "if" statements without learning syntax. It appears people have passed it within 14 days. Still want to piviot to UX & UI design with DB back end. Onward and Upward.

Starting class that covers IT [WGU basics]

JDailey — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 20:49:30 +0000

Midway through my general software development beginners class. The class is interesting and re-ignited my desire to work with Database Management. Only touched on SQL a little and excited to move into C# and Java. Maybe Python eventually to do the back end, but one step at a time. All the best.