Internet Security

For this week's class, we were exposed to internet security and one particular useful thing i learnt was how to differentiate between a virus, worm and trojans. So what are the differences??? :O

 Virus:

 A virus:

• a computer program. It's written by some individual or individuals, presumably with the intent of spreading and causing grief.
• makes the infected computer "sick" - in the computer sense, "sick" can mean poor performance, crashes, lost files and data, or more.
• replicates itself - just like you can copy a file from one disk to another, and now have copies on both disks, a computer virus is in part defined by its ability to make copies of itself. Typically the copies aren't on the infected computer, but rather on other computers, which leads us to the last characteristic...
• infects other computers - exactly how depends on the virus, of course, but another key defining point for a computer virus is that it can spread, on its own.

Computer Worm:

A worm:

• a stand-alone program
• can cause a great deal of trouble merely by getting passed from one computer to many others, and can clog up a network very quickly.

Trojan Horse:

A Trojan Horse:

• program that claims to be one thing, but is, in fact, another
• not a virus, per se, but may carry them.  
• For example many people consider Kazaa, the music sharing software, a trojan horse because it carries with it a bunch of spyware. 

So, locally, in Singapore, are companies in Singapore aware about all the cybercrime and stuff related to internet security??? :O

According to an article from CNET news, it states that:

Many organizations are focused on stopping random hackers and blocking pornography when they should be concerned with bigger threats from professional cybercriminals, according to a new cybersecurity report.

to read more: see this link.. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62060776,00.htm

In short, many companies are misguided with relation to their security. To me, this is a big concern as the focus of companies are misdirected and imagine what cybercriminals are capable of if they know how lax the companies are with their security! Their companies could very much suffer a big loss should they be attacked by cybercriminals.. One can only hope that through news like this, companies would increase their security against potential internet cybercriminals. 

Internet tools

HAPPY CHINESE YEAR EVERYONE!! :)

For this particular blog entry, it's gonna be pretty exciting as i did a video entry of using an internet tool, in specific google maps. And it's even more exciting as i did it while i was on my chinese new year holiday in London! So please watch the video as it took me a while to piece together the pictures and videos i specially took for this video :) 

Before you watch this video, i would like to introduce the google tool which i am exploring so you have more knowledge about this internet tool. So what is Google maps? It is a basic web mapping service application and offers street maps, a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or public transport and an urban business locator for numerous countries around the world. So visually, it looks like the picture below when you type in a destination you would like to get to.. 

The most spectacular feature of google maps that i am very intrigued with is probably the street view.. Google makes use of a car with a camera attached on the top like the one you see here:

By so doing, it allows google maps to show us UP TO DATE (AMAZING ISN"T IT!!! :D) the pictures of the place! The pictures are very clear and allows us, the users to see the place and spot it easier when we look for it ourselves.. Is this tool cool or what!!

NOW, on to the main highlight:

My video on my experience using google maps! Hope you find it fascinating! :)

My experience making this video has indeed been quite a fruitful one as i learned more about how to use google maps and how to use it to enable myself to reach the tube station in the fastest time possible. Moreover, after making this video, i will probably use google tools again if i ever get myself lost! :) One of the best google tools created!!

Power of Internet for Learning

This week's class was on elearning which is the learning using digital tools and content. To bring in a more personal light, it's especially so for me as I am now doing an online course where my professor (MGO 302: Product and Operations Management ) teaches me through videos that she uploads in real time(albeit a bit outdated by a few hours, nonetheless, still very amazing that i can see her teaching even though she is many leagues away from me! :P) and students located in Singapore and London are able to watch her lectures. Personally, i do think this form of teaching is quite effective as she doesn't need to travel to Singapore to teach and YET is still able to teach us! Therefore, instead of having only 500 students from US, she has 200 extra students over singapore! And with the videos, it gives us the students the flexibility to pause and replay whatever material we missed while the lecturer was speaking! Now wouldn't we all wish that we had that in all everyday lessons where we can pause to copy notes and press play when our teachers talk too fast?? :P

HOWEVER(yes yes, there is always a "however" to almost everything!), there are some cons (at least for the students that are not "physically present" in class). For example, i ran into a problem with the videos uploaded. I discovered to my horror that I had been watching videos from last year 's curriculum!!! :( Apparently it was a technical error on the US side but due to the time difference, it took a while to fix (wasting some time on my part!). Besides that, there is always the problem of asking questions through email.. It's just that certain things are really hard to explain through email (especially stuff like diagrams!! OH MY!) and there's always the possibility that the teacher may misinterpret the question asked when trying to figure out what the email was asking.

Despite the pros and cons, i do find overall that im learning a vast amount from the course and im glad that i took up the course in my last semester! Really rewarding experience.. :)

Just a sidenote, i did manage to find out that there are some ways to make elearning more effective for those interested in it:

1) Add a face

Learners are usually reluctant to attend a soft skills training as they tend to think of it as being non-essential, as opposed to technical, work-related training. Already non-motivated, learners will resist a training that is imparted by a faceless, soulless monitor. 

Adding a friendly face to the course material will add a human dimension to the training. Introducing a coach, buddy, or a mentor at the beginning of the course will make it easier for learners to understand the learning objectives. Bringing him/her back at checkpoint and summary screens will be a good idea. Coaches can also help introduce scenarios in the training.

2) Answer WIIFM (What’s in it for me)

The most important question posed by the learners: What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)While most learning objectives address the question in concrete, technical terms, they fail to motivate and convince the learners how the training proposes to benefit them. An instructional designer or content writer should focus on responding to this question in a simple, mentor-like manner, explaining clearly the advantages of the training to the learner. 

3) Present scenarios

A soft skills training cannot be imparted with a series of dos, don’ts, shoulds, and shouldn’ts. A learner will not gain anything from the training unless the training responds to the corresponding whys and why nots. Well-illustrated scenarios can help explain the finer details of the soft skills.

4) Familiar territory

Use characters and situations closer to real life to present scenarios. A thorough audience analysis will help build strong and effective scenarios. Factors such as age, country, ethnicity, language, culture, even attire and food should be taken into consideration while creating scenarios. At times, non-familiarity with the audience could result in a well-meaning scenario giving offense to the learners.

5) Provide online help

This is the toughest challenge and is often not considered because of technical limitations. An always-available guide can help learners extract more from trainings. I am not referring to a physical guide here, but an online repository of information acting as an available facilitator.

Doing business on the internet

This week, we were introduced to the ever so famous term: E-Commerce.. So what exactly is e-commerce??? Well, exactly like how it sounds, it is "the paperless exchange of goods or services through the use of electronic data transfer”.  In the current century, with technology improving and with the increased use of the internet, e-commerce is becoming more and more common for businesses who want to stay current.

Personally, i feel that e-commerce is like a double-edged sword. There are pros and cons to going online to do e-commerce..

 From the web link, http://www.nireland.com/e.commerce/Pros%20and%20Cons.htm, it gives a simple summary of the pros and cons for going into e-commerce.

Pro's and Con's for Businesses

Pro's	Con's
Should increase their market share	Hardware and software are essential and these are big
Enables them to access international markets	Distribution must be very efficient
After they have paid off their capital costs it should increase their productivity	Website site would have to be constantly updates.  Which leads to extra labour costs and training and retraining costs
Enable them to achieve greater economies of scale

Indeed, from my observation of different businesses that were set up online, those businesses that were able to make full use of the internet and were able to market themselves, are able to get the most out of e-commerce. Take for example, Apple. They are currently one of the world's leading mobile devices company.. After watching their video for their latest product I-Pad, im shocked to know that they had just sold their 250 millionth ipod!! And this is partially thanks to their apple website which is easy to use and allows consumers to pick up a product that they like just with a few simple clicks.

This begs the question..in order for your e-commerce to succeed, e-marketing is very important and therefore, how do you make it a success??

According to this website (http://www.emarketingmatador.com/the-4-pillars-of-internet-marketing-success), it states that there are 4 different pillars that are crucial to e-marketing:

1) Good website Design

By having a good website design, it considers what information is presented where and how it is presented. Good Web Design can place focus of the user better, but its primary role is to answer the immediate questions, and get them where they and you both want them to go.

Example of a GOOD website:

• It has a clean look
  
• Appropriate links for users to click on depending on what they want to find out
• THUMBS UP FOR THIS SITE!!! :D
  

Example of a BAD website:

• Links are terribly small, are users supposed to squint their eyes to look for the right links to click!?!?!? Ridiculous!! :(:(
  
• Colors of the background are very jarring and distracting!! :( HORRENDOUS!!
• THUMBS DOWN!! BOO!!! By the time any user finds the correct link, i guarantee you that any person looking at this website will have a SPLITTING HEADACHE (like i did!!!) :S
  

2) Good website Coding

Sites with image map and java script drop down menus miss out on being more attractive to search engines and the result is less inbound traffic from the search engines. This would result in users not being able to find the site!!! Thus, it is crucial that website coding is done well.

3) Drive Relevant Visits

To drive relevant traffic, a business needs to know it audience, where they are online and how to best engage them.  For instance, if you know your audience is interested in "home decorating", are women between the ages of 30 and 60 and reside in the Metro Denver area ( in the case of Windows Dressed Up ), then you could target them with Pay per Click, Online Advertising, Social Media Ads and a few other tactics that allow you to target by demographics and geography.

4) Maximising Conversion Rates

There are 7 simple steps as listed below:

1. Make it easy – Don’t have too many steps to achieve something.  Registration for example should only collect essential info.
2. Keep it simple – Don’t overwhelm people with too many options.
3. Relevant Offerings – If someone is seeking information about cooking, don’t try to push lawn equipment on them.
4. Good Placement – Make offers
5. Clear Calls To Action – Don’t have a button that says "submit".  Make the button have meaning like "Book your package today".
6. If possible, offer things that are unique and valuable, preferably both.
7. Have special or free offer your site audience would really want.  See #6 above.   This is related to nurturing business and something we’ll go into at a later date.

If most e-commerce business were to take into consideration the above few factors, i do believe that any website would be one step closer to becoming an e-commerce website that will succeed.. :)

Social Media Part 2

Continuation of social media!!! :D

Anyway, carrying on from the earlier post i talked about social media, i found it absolutely fascinating the point by our professor on how the television which is one of the traditional media & examples of institutional control, is able to influence people, such as in voting. That really got me thinking as i recalled watching a movie that my UGC 211 professor showed us during class last semester, "Fahrenheit 9/11" where it showed the HUGE INFLUENCE that television has on voting during the elections involving George W. Bush and Al Gore.Indeed, that made me wonder the IMPACT that the television has on the masses. It's able to MANIPULATE and INFLUENCE people to act the way they WANT so much so that it is able to affect people's perspective of the situation.

Below is the video that i found to be relevant to how the news on the television is able to influence the people's opinions during 2000's election in US:


SHOCKING RIGHT!!!! I can't believe the other networks ACTUALLY TRUSTED Fox News without confirming first with concrete evidence that George W. Bush had more votes than Al Gore. Pity really that it became a 'birds flock together mentality'.. :(

Notably, there has been a significant shift though in recent times from the traditional media (e.g. TV, Movies, Radios, Print) to the social media (e.g. Podcasts, Forums, Wikis) and one such example of social media that was most intriguing is probably the podcast..(mostly because i've NEVER used it even though i knew the existence of it!! :P)

The podcast: A collection of digital media files which is distributed over the internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable MP3 players and personal computers.

In order to have a first hand experience on the availability of podcasts to the masses were like, i went to the itunes application store and even discovered an application tool that was created which allows users to view at ease the top 100 podcasts for the day. Indeed, this makes searching for podcasts that other people like really fuss-free.

Im so awed as while trying to find out more about the podcasts on the internet, i discovered that we could actually upload podcasts with blogger!!! Now that is WAYYYY COOL for sure!!! :D Don't know how to? Well, refer to this video for an easy step by step guide as to how to do it.. :)

Social Media Part 1

Today during lesson, we were introduced to social media.. And the one question that will pop inevitably into anyone's mind is.. What is social media about???? :O
So!!! A common definition for social media is: online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. One particular video that i would like to highlight is the video on social networking on cyberspace.. You will wonder.. What am i talking about??

Well... one of the most obvious examples is none other than the popular....


FACEBOOK!!!!!!!
Indeed, facebook is such an important essential part of our lives these days especially because we are so caught up with our own lives that it becomes increasingly difficult to connect with friends in comparison to the past.

Below is a video from Carolyn Kelley Klinger who describes the personal and professional benefits and uses of Facebook. It gives a short and sweet summary of the pros of using such a social network. :)

To sum up from the video, facebook is important as:

1. It provides a chance to connect with people, especially friends all the way back from high school and keep friends updated by changing "status"
   
2. Helps to reinforce our own "brand"
   
3. Can use it professionally for own company, e.g. Society for Technical communication
   

Being a very visual person, i found the bottom visual image quite useful in showing how facebook enables us to use the social media effectively. (click on the image below if it's a little fuzzy, it'll appear clearer that way! :D)

I always find it amazing that how facebook has evolved to becoming more than just a way to add friends that you know.. for example, i once chanced upon the "Marketplace" in facebook and found people giving up their little kittens up for adoption.

In some sense, it's a heartwarming experience seeing how people make good use of social media such as faceboook to look for good homes to adopt the little furry creatures.. :)

History of the internet?!?!??!

You're gonna wonder why i placed a nuclear bomb as the first picture of my blog entry today... HAHA! It's mostly because today i was introduced to the.. *DRUMROLLS!*

HISTORY OF THE INTERNET!!

To me, it's totally MINDBLOWING...almost to the effect of like a nuclear bomb! =O Words can't describe what i was thinking as i did not know there was more to the history of how internet was formed than first meets the eye.. Who would have thought that the history of internet even involved the Soviet Union sending up a satellite into space?!!? You can sort of imagine my surprise when i went to search on the internet and i chanced upon this slightly amusing clip on how the internet started! :D i think it gives quite a humorous perspective to the history! Watch it below!


On to some fun trivia that i learnt in class today:

Did you know how the first mouse for computers look like??

It looked like this!
Okay okay! Just kidding and pulling your leg! WAHAHA! :D it looked actually like this!!!!
Like WHOA, seriously!!! From what i discovered, it's created in 1986, by Apple Macintosh Plus. It's the most basic of mouse which is why it does not have different buttons to left click and right click. What a far cry from how i thought the first mouse would look! It looked more like a box if you ask me!! :P And years later in our current generation:
We see the EVOLUTION of the new mice that currently we all use! The awesome mighty mouse of the century! Indeed, we have improved in technology by leaps and bounds. :) It's amazing how technology has come so far..