2wenty Cents

The term: "The Dark Web," invokes in many illicit activity, criminals, identity theft and hackers. While it does harbor criminal activity, the dark web forms part of a greater portion of the internet known as The Deep Web.  Yes, the deep and the dark web are two different entities. The deep web represents parts of the world wide web that are not indexed by traditional search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo or Bing. That is, they do not typically appear in search engine results. Examples of such are password protected pages like those belonging to websites owned by banks or paid streaming services, websites intentionally hidden from web crawlers, messages exchanged between users on websites/web apps and comments on forums. This very blog is on the deep web. The part of the world wide web that you and I see through our google searches is what is referred to as the surface web. It may not seem like it but the surface web is a only a small portion of the web. Over 90% of the web ...

Windows, Linux or macOS; which operating system(OS) should I use? Before I answer the question, let's explore the world of operating systems a little by talking about each of the three aforementioned systems.  Windows is a proprietary operating system that was developed by Microsoft and runs on a plethora of device types. For purpose, I will only focus on Windows for PC(PC is short for Personal Computer: the laptop you and I use to surf the internet, play games or write and submit reports and assignments is a personal computer). Personal computers are by far one of the more ubiqitious computer types right next to smartphones.There are other types of computers such as supercomputers and mainframe computers but that is a topic worth exploring on its own. Okay, back to Windows:  The Windows OS was first released in November of 1985 as Windows 1.0. Today, the latest version of the OS is Windows 10. Windows is still the most popular OS in the world for PCs and comes built-in on mos...

Databases make the world go round. In this age of information, databases are arguably the most important piece of technology and will continue to impact technological development today and for generations to come. Just about every application you have ever used relies on a database in one form or another and so today, we discuss the database. What is a database and why is it such a big deal? DEFINITION: Well, a database is defined as a collection of structured data or information. The collection in question is often stored on a computer and can be accessed, manipulated and/or managed through a Database Management System(DBMS).  A DBMS is software that acts as a middleman between clients(users of the database) and the database and can also perform administrative tasks on the database. DATA & INFORMATION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? Data is facts that pertain to a particular subject. For example: age, height, weight, photos, colleges attended, phone number etc...These are all facts ...

Cloud computing has grown considerably since the early 2000s.  451 Research predicted that in 2017, a third of all spending on IT will be on cloud computing.  What is Cloud Computing? Cloud computing refers to the provision of on-demand computer services over the internet on a pay-as-you-go model. The aforementioned computing services include software services, database management, intelligence, analytics and hardware(servers). Cloud computing is often provided by vendors with vast computing resources and relies on the economics of scale. Major players in this space are AWS(Amazon Web Services), Microsoft's Azure, IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and Google Cloud.  There are various service models that are provided by vendors and the use of each depends on the needs of a customer. These service models include (but are not limited to): Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). IaaS : this involves the provision of computing...

You've probably heard of them. They show up in an alert on most of the web pages you visit. You've probably also heard that they are a big deal. Today, I will answer a question you have secretly asked yourself once or twice. So, what are cookies? Cookies are minute bits ( no pun intended ) of information that are stored on a user's computer by their web browser while they interact with a website. The aformentioned bits ( still, no pun intended ) are a way in which websites "remember" the state in which the user left a web page in a previous visit or visits. For example, cookies help remember the number of items in your shopping cart as you traverse an e-commerce website. Cookies can also serve as a record of a user's browsing activity and remember information the user entered into form fields such as names, email addresses, physical addresses and the like.  Who invented cookies? A prolific computer programmer named Lou Montulli coined the term "cookie...

This week's post is a reflection. This year has brought with it significant changes both personal and with regard to the trajectory of my career. When the year began, I had fully recovered from a life changing surgery and felt that I had a new lease on life; a chance to start over. The future seemed exciting with a great many prospects to look forward to.  During the years leading up to 2020, I had successfully masked serious mental illness. I had achieved this morbid feat through a toxic reliance on myself and had cultivated a belief system which at its core mandated that I solve my own problems and that no one had the acumen to help me. Back to the beginning of the year: things were also looking up in the realm of academia. I had successfully completed the first two years of my four-year degree programme and was primed and ready to tackle year three. However, there was a problem. The meagre passion I had for my degree programme would finally succumb as my lack of interest in the ...

  JavaScript's strict mode, introduced in ECMAScript 5, is a way to  opt-in  to a restricted variant of JavaScript, thereby implicitly opting-out of "sloppy mode". Strict mode isn't just a subset: it intentionally has different semantics from normal code. Strict mode implements several changes to normal JS code semantics: 1.  Eliminates some JavaScript silent errors by changing them to throw errors. 2.  Fixes mistakes that make it difficult for JavaScript engines to perform optimizations: strict mode code can sometimes be made to run faster than identical code that's not strict mode. 3.  Prohibits some syntax likely to be defined in future versions of ECMAScript How does one go about invoking strict mode in their code? There are several places you can do this and these include in functions, for whole scripts and since ECMAScript 2015, in modules. To invoke strict mode in functions, simply add  'use strict';  OR  "use strict";  to the beg...