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Basic security strategies
Basic security strategies to keep your stuff away from malicious attacks
A brief guide to newbies and everyone who uses a computer or any other similar device to surf the Internet.
First, you MUST have an antivirus that is regularly updated.
The antivirus is the shield that should protect you from various malicious threats like viruses, Trojans and so on. Paying some money for a decent antivirus is not too much for your security.
In my own opinion, Kaspersky is the best ever but you have to have a very good computer regarding hardware. Still, you got other options like having a free antivirus such as Avast! Or AVG. I personally use Avast free antivirus.
Second, when you download something from the Internet make sure it’s from a trusted website.
Downloading software can be dangerous if you don’t know who the provider is, but it can be OK if you know what you are doing.
For software trusted websites I recommend Microsoft Download Center and C-Net or Softpedia.
But anyways, scan the files before running them.
Third, be careful when chatting with strangers.
There are some steps here:
1- Don’t add someone you don’t know.
2- Don’t give out any passwords or sensitive info through chatting software unless you encrypt that.*
3- Don’t click on links that were sent to you via email for instance unless you know where you’re going.
4- Never reply emails that talk about like I’m poor and imprisoned somewhere and I wanna give you money, and report them to email service providers.
Lastly, be smart!
There are a lot of spammers and scammers on the Internet; they utilize social websites like Facebook and Twitter to get detailed info about the “victim” as they call it and use it to cheat on that victim or on other people connected to them.
Don’t be friends with someone who always puts links of malicious code; websites or applications that contain viruses or other malicious software to penetrate your computer in order to get some important info like, credit card number, email password etc.
Don’t give so much detailed information about you so no one can take advantage of that.
Thank you!
Firass Kaddour
*There are many ways to encrypt files in order to send them safely over the Internet, contact me for more information.
How You Can Speak English Fluently!
If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take into consideration four skills, which are reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
The most important thing you must bear in mind is that reading and listening are inputs whereas speaking and writing are outputs. In other words, if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening. There are some ways that you can do so, which I will try to summarize.
1-Reading
Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the structure, unfamiliar words etc as you read. There is no need that you stick to some complicated grammar structures or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them for example in other passages or books is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or structures in it. To begin reading, I recommend the Penguin Readers books. They are classified by level of difficulty.
2-Listening
As for listening, there are two options:
Aside from reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes.
You can only concentrate on your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening.
I myself prefer the latter because when you are skillful and native-like at reading, your listening skill grows automatically. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.
For listening I recommend cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy and do not contain complicated phrases or slang terms. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs broadcasted every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.
If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect.
My Personal Experience in Learning English
Hello everybody and welcome.
I would like to start with my own experience through which I achieved native-like competence of American English. Long ago, since I was a little child at nearly the age of 10 and by mere chance I was exposed to Whitney Houston's song "I will always love you".
That made a great, deep impression in me though I didn't understand what I heard. So, I kept trying to repeat the song but in vain because I didn’t speak English, so I tried to remember the melody only in order not to forget the song because maybe one day I’ll come to know this song’s title.
After about five years and by chance again I bought a cassette that included Whitney’s song and Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on “as well. That was amazing I was so happy I found the song I was looking for.
Then I started to listen to my local radio stations which broadcasted English songs, and sometimes they were telling the lyrics of those songs. That helped a lot, but until that time I wasn’t seeking improvement in English. Then, and with the passage of time, I started understanding few words and sometimes fifty percent of the songs I hear on the radio. Of course I was a secondary school student at that time, so I had some English grammar knowledge. I want you to know that what was driving me is love, the love of that language.
I wasn’t intending to improve my English, but it was automatically improving by the passage of time.
After I grew up a little bit I decided to study English Literature at the university, because I said to myself this is the best subject I’ve been good at during my school life, so I want to do it. And that’s what happened; I studied English Literature at university and graduated recently.
There’s something I want you to know, my native-like competence didn’t evolve because of the university, it evolved from hardworking and self-study. I used to listen to native speakers of both British and American English almost all the time, I imitated their pronunciation, and of course this didn’t happen simultaneously, I had to repeat and practice even with myself i.e. I spoke to myself sometimes loudly and I’m still doing it. Because you know… and as one of my friends told me that he is not finding a person to communicate with in English, I didn’t have my English mate as well, not even had a person to speak English with. Some said that : come on man, we’re not English why should we use their language?, some didn’t have the courage, and many others couldn’t communicate in English though they were English Literature students and were exposed to English almost daily and for at least five six hours a day.
So I decided to chat with English people on the internet. Most of my conversations were by writing only, I had the chance to speak via voice only twice in the last four years.
It was such a pleasure to speak English fluently at least for a few minutes with my professors back at the university.
I tried to speak all the time. I needed a chance so I told one of my instructors to let me make a presentation in front of all my colleagues, and she said ok. I did it, and during it I cracked a joke in order to refresh the students but guess what happened?! Only four guys understood what I said and laughed. Oh my God, I was shocked but still, I wanted to go on.
You might ask yourselves this question “How could this guy pronounce English like native speakers, and I’ve been trying so hard to do that and I couldn’t?! Even though I’ve been studying English for years and in formal classes”.
I can tell you something but I don’t want you to get disappointed or frustrated; as I studied language learning theories and how a child acquires his mother tongue and how an adult learns a new language and how far can he or she achieve native-like competence of that language, this could be up to many factors like: age, teacher, environment, the right input etc…….
But my case as I think is a kind of innateness, something I was inborn with, so no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do you’re not gonna reach that point. I don’t wanna disappoint you but this is the truth as far as pronunciation is concerned.
But, you should keep learning and trying to improve your English whatsoever, don’t lose hope and practice English pronunciation as much as you could because not all learners of English are native-like speakers, but some have a nice pronunciation, they’re able to communicate with others, they can express themselves clearly.
Finally, one of the best ways to improve your English is using it, use it or lose it.
Please help me fulfill my quest by commenting on my articles and lessons.
Mr. Firass Kaddour
Syrian Arab Republic
