Instructions

How many times you needed a guideline, best practices and or something that can help you with your computer security class or professional exam and you Google it. Just to see many times a list of useless links. We invest time screening and checking those links, just to find that one or two of them have some good information.  

Well that happened to me one time to many. I started to save useful links to my browser's favorites. However, now that they are in my favorites (hurrah), now my problem was to find them! Useless to say that good links were "lost" in my favorites!!!!!!

I found a tool called PersonalBrain as they say in their site "Simply type in your ideas. Drag and drop files and web pages. Any idea can be linked to anything else. Using your digital Brain is like cruising through a Web of your thinking. See new relationships. Discover connections. Go from the big picture of everything to a specific detail in seconds. Accelerate your mind". This tool has resulted to be my favorite for storing information for my thesis and professional exams (CISSP and CCNA).

By saving web pages links, documents and ideas in a visual and relational mind map, now searches for security information are a breeze (at least for me) because it has more than 1600 links that that had accumulated over time and organized by subject. These links include: 

• Standards like COBIT and ISO
• Guidelines like NIST 800 series
• Computer dictionaries
• RFPs
• Information on governance
• US-CERT projects
• Games (yes, security people play games too!)
• Awareness videos
• Forensics
• Cloud Computing
• Pod casts
• Government Agencies like NSA, FBI, DSS, FTC
• Much much more.....

After several years of adding links and documents,  I am giving access to this library to everyone in the Internet. If you like it please leave a note in the page with your opinion and or suggestion. Every single word is  appreciated.

If you don't find the information that you need by clicking on the mind map  you can use the search tool that is located in the top panel, in the lower left side (small white rectangle).

Follow These Steps For a Power Search (note: You won't transform into a super hero.)

1. Please be sure to have the latest JAVA software.
2. Wait for like 15 seconds the first time (depending on your connection speed).
3. The window has two panes (top and bottom). In the top panel look in the lower left corner for a small white rectangle and click on it.
4. Type your request (e.g. 800-53).
5. A list of possible options is shown.
6. Click on the one that best fits your needs.
7. A thought with the data requested will be shown.
8. At the beginning of the selected thought there is an icon. This icon is a link to the document that has the information that you need.
9. Click on the icon if you want to see the document.
10. The requested document will show at the bottom pane.

Important Notes 

1. In the screen there are two panes. The top one shows the plex  (inverted tree) and the bottom one shows the document requested or notes if available. Between panes there is a dividing line and in the middle there are three figures:
   • Small blue triangle pointing up - This will maximize the document pane (bottom pane).
   • Small blue diamond  - This will bring the dividing line (plex/document) to the middle
   • Small blue triangle pointing down - This one will maximize the plex pane (top pane).
2. Is important to note that the results of the search appear in the bottom pane as a page or a link with an icon that cam be clicked. If the page appears in the bottom please use the triangles that are between the top and bottom panes to maximize or minimize the bottom pane.If you see an Adobe icon in the bottom pane just click it to open the document