Levii.com

Masters complete, onward and upward towards the Doctorate

Thursday, 17 November 2011 02:09 Levii Smith

I think that the title of this short entry says it all. I was awarded my Masters of Science in Information Security and Assurance on Nov 2, 2011. I thoroughly enjoyed the Western Governors University (WGU) program, but alas, they don't offer a PhD or D.Sc. I've been evaluating postgraduate studies at a number of online, hybrid (partial residency) and full time universities and unfortunately the program I'm most interested in (PhD in Information Systems delivered locally at UMSL) is not accepting candidates at this time (http://www.umsl.edu/~phdis/). I'll continue working on my evaluations, but so far the following have risen to the top of the list: Capella, Dakota State, Northeastern and Nova. These have been selected due to cost, availability and reputation of their respective programs. Applications are due in next month so acceptance will be another issue alltogether. In short ... 4 more years of school and then it will be time to start over on my way to that J.D. I've been looking at since I started going to school.

As always, I hope all of my friends and family are doing well (since you're the only ones that read this site) and keep in touch. I'm working on building out my social profile (eg. LinkedIn, Facebook) and updating this site to encompass more than the personal items I post for you so expect some changes to come. The goal of course, is for this to be the one stop shop for all of you looking to check up on me or Tara ... now if I can only get her to post some things about her and Aemilia from time to time.

//Levii

Another day, a little closer to the Master's degree

Thursday, 22 September 2011 00:32 Levii Smith

I'm still bad at posting - but the idea is that I'll get better over time. The site needs upgraded since most of my tools are having issues with IE9 and other new browsers ... perhaps when I make updating easier for myself, I'll have actual content.

So, another step closer to the MS-ISA - I completed the GIAC G2700 exam last week and can now add GIAC Certified ISO 27001 specialist to the list of certifications. Working on the capstone/thesis now and will post some of my white papers to the site under a new area in the mid-term. Tara's classes are going well this semester and she is enjoying Chemistry. Aemelia is growing like a weed, loves chewing on everything and can stand by herself. She just got over a cold (poor thing) but I've got new pictures of her in the gallery.

I hope all is well with anyone who reads these or checks the site from time to time. Keep in touch.

//Levii

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 September 2011 00:33

Almost have free time again

Thursday, 05 November 2009 00:50 Levii Smith

Well, after a very busy summer and fall of school, I nearly have time to start working on putting this site back together again. That means evaluating gallery solutions, and working on some organization of our data. Hopefully, that means for anyone out there who checks this and wonders what Tara and I are up to - we'll have something out there by Christmas.

//Levii

A reason to relink an old article

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 20:17 Levii Smith

Well, a small reason to republish something old has come up. An interesting /. (slashdot.org) article regarding the use of shorter passwords got me involved in the discussion of alternate password generation systems. I visited this once upon a time in a previous job where I used a substitution cipher method to allow users to have short passwords they could remember and cycle them by generating their own wallet-sized keycard. This enforced strong passwords on the system, with something simple for the user. I've reposted the code at http://www.levii.com/Code/cipher.php for anyone that's interested in the method.

Of course, there are changes I'd make now - but I'll take this as my next very small step in putting this site back together since it was defaced early last year.

The relevant /. article is here for completeness: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725814&cid=32965640

//Levii
email: smithlev @ thisdomain

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 July 2010 20:22

Back Online!

Thursday, 23 July 2009 02:12 Levii

Welcome to Levii.com version 3. The site's been offline for a while after being defaced by the "Azerbajian Attacker" and I, of all people, didn't have a good backup of the site. So, with that in mind this incarnation will unfortunately not allow user registrations since that appears to have been the avenue of attack (hopefully the bug has been fixed in Joomla! version 1.5.12 ... but until I investigate I'm leaving it closed).

To friends and family; I apologize for the delay and lack of information due to the site being offline. I'm aware that I don't get to speak to many of you as often as I'd like and I try to keep this site updated for that purpose. Tara and I wish you the best and our stories, pictures and adventures will be back up soon.

Thanks and have a wonderful day,
Levii