10 Question Tech Quiz

Val Steed

CEO K2 Enterprises

www.k2e.com/conferences

July 24, 2018

In today’s technology-driven world, it’s easy to get lost in the clutter. What should I choose to read about? Study? What really matters? What doesn’t?

At times, we all get overwhelmed and look for answers from our peers, from “the experts” and from news sources. In my world, I’m a bit spoiled. I get to work with a number of great technologists that frequently share information.

For example, one of my associates this week informed me that the latest Microsoft Office update (1805 and 1806) will break the Silverlight plug-in, which in turn breaks some of the power add-in tools like Power View. Because of this, he recommends staying on Office version 1803 until the problem is resolved.

I doubt Microsoft intended to mess up their own add-ins, but they do have a history of breaking stuff with updates at times. All technology companies have their issues. This simple tip saves me a ton of time going forward. I can skip the 1805 and 1806 update and wait for Microsoft to fix the situation. 

The value of a team approach to technology cannot be overstated. Permit me to brag about our teaching team at K2 for a second. I believe we have the best group of technologists in the accounting profession, period. Every year we develop a two-day technology conference and present at 25 different sites—almost all of which are in partnership with state CPA societies. I invite you to take advantage of our technology team by participating in one of these conferences.

A list of our two-day technology conferences can be found at: www.k2e.com/conferences

During these conferences, we cover a variety of technology-based questions. Here’s a quick ten-question technology assessment full of questions we’ll tackle in this year’s two-day conference. Let’s see how well you do.

 Technology Assessment

True or False (answers at the end of the article)

1. Windows Defender does nothing to help you with Ransomware?
2. There is no way to change the timing of your Microsoft Office updates to avoid a software collision.
3. The SANS institute defines “long and strong” passwords as ones having numbers, letters, special characters and are at least 12 characters long.
4. The current recommendation in the industry is to change your password at least once every other month.
5. Acrobat DC can convert (render) PDF back to spreadsheet or word processing formats right from within the product.
6. Windows 10 has a new Night Light feature to ease the strain on your eyes from the bright blue light in monitors.
7. Blockchain is a drive encryption technology to protect data.
8. Microsoft’s Power BI Desktop application is free.
9. Outsourced accounting services (CAS) are proving to be costly and hard to maintain.
10. There are two versions of Excel in the market.

Answers

1.     False. Windows 10 (all versions) have a new setting in Windows Defender that locks down which applications can use which files. The new feature called Control Folder Access is a white list approach to controlling ransomware. Ransomware depends on the ability to modify data files with their encryption tools to hold you ransom. This is a great new feature from Microsoft.

2.     False. You can do an online update of your office installation which will automatically push you back into the slowest update path possible for Microsoft Office.

3.     True.

4.     False. The current trend in password management is to come up with a unique long and strong password for each site and then keep it, unless there is a suspected breach or compromise. This will come as a shock to many but this is the latest direction on password management. Studies have found that users who are forced to change passwords often just end up adding digits to the end of an existing password or use something very simple they can easily remember.

5.     True. The new command is Export PDF.

6.     True. I have now enabled this feature on all my Windows systems and I find this to be one of my favorite features.

7.     False. Blockchain is a distributed tamper resistant (some say tamper-proof) transaction ledger, not a drive encryption technology. Blockchain is the basis for the ledgers proving ownership for digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Its claim to fame is the encrypted add-on segments (blocks) for each step in the transaction history thereby ensuring historical accuracy on the data. This does not mean that the transaction is not fraudulent, it just means you can examine the beginning, end, and every touch in the middle, and be confident that the transactions have not been changed after they were recorded. The transaction could still be outside of the business policies for that business (e.g. an approved payment to a legitimate vendor for a kickback) and still be fraud.

8.     True.

9.     False. The function of providing accounting services to clients and companies (CAS) has grown substantially over the past five years. Simple bookkeeping, outsourced controller, and full service CFO capabilities are all now possible. The key to a successful solution is an up-front quality needs analysis with proper installation and training. This is one of the high growth areas of accounting technology.

10. True. Many people find out the hard way they don’t have the Office Professional Plus or Office Pro Plus version of Office. The right version of Excel to run the power add-ins such as PowerPivot, Power View, etc. comes with these versions of Office.

I hope you found this article of use and I look forward to seeing you at one of our technology conferences this summer or fall.

All the best!

Val