Week 12 Muddy-Telecommunications and Internet

This week we discussed Telecommunications and Internet.

There was so much information in this ek that it started getting actually kind of muddy, but I tried to keep focused. There were a lot of technical terms such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Fiber To The Home (FTTH), and many many more that they all started to run together. The best thing that I read though, was about Amdahl's Law which stated: A system's speed is always determined by the slowest component. This of course is pretty much common sense, but I think  that it is easily forgotten especially when people are out shopping for the latest and the greatest thing. Think about it. What good is a smartphone that is labeled with the speed of 4G LTE, when the service is not even offered in the area? None at all according to Amdahl's Law, as your performance will be based not on the phone's capabailities, but the capabilities of the service that you have.



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Another cool term which I learned was cybersquatting, which means to acquire a domain name that refers to a firm, individual, product, or trademark, with the goal of exploiting it for financial gain. The practice of doing that is illegal in many countries, and ICANN even has a dispute resolution mechanism in place for such events.

Image Created By:Charles Mok  http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesmok/3728322519/ 

There was so much information in the readings this week that my eyes started crossing at every term or acronym that I came across, I will definately need to re-read much of this material in order to get a better grasp on what it all means. Even though the material is not above me, it is just so much at one time that it starts to get confusing. I hope to forecast a clear blog next week!!

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Week 11 Clear-Data Asset

This week I read about and watched lectures on data, basically just data. Well, and information, and how information is basically just organized/structured data. I had a pretty clear understanding on this week's material, as much of it seems to be information we already discussed, but in more detail. I also learned how data can be organized and brought together in order to make business decisions and not just hunches and how data leverage in the market lies at the center of competitive advantage.

I also read about databases and learned what they focus on, e.g. sales, product returns, inventory, payroll, geographical data and business units. There was a little bit of information that is still somewhat muddy after this week, such as Database Management Systems (DBMS), I mean, I can read about what they do, but actually seeing them in action is a whole other thing.

Image Created by: (Zoli Erdos) http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoliblog/3919429359/

I also learned about data and security, and how that "Big Data" is often targeted by hackers and other aggregators looking to steal data to either use it for profitable gain or to sell to others.

This week's information was jam-packed full of so much information that to explain everything would take many KB of data!

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Just know that I read and learned about canned reports, Ad-hoc reporting tools, Dashboards, and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). I have also linked these terms with websites that can offer a good explanation and offer more meaning than my words could ever offer!

Database Project-Microsoft Access

The Database Project was a nice little project, I used Microsoft Access to do my project since I use a PC and not a Mac. I learned so much from the project being that I have never used Microsoft Access before the project. It was real intersting to see how you could import data from an Excel file and turn it to a nice readable table. The project gave me a sense of understanding on how to create a simple report or query, it also showed me how easy it can be to organize data once the database is created for the purpose desired. The only part that I think I will have some trouble with is remembering formulas and such to make validation rules and such.

"Images created by Christopher Ondrako, 2012. Permission granted to reuse with attribution."

 Thinking of ways to enhance the functionality of this database, I thought that we could then export the information back to Excel to create charts and graphs to see trends. These trends could range from Profit, length of membership, what part of year are people joining or cancelling. Another thing is that we could run the report, and those that cancelled, send surveys and offer promotions to return. The survey would give the company an idea on what is going right/wrong and we could adjust accordingly. It would also offer a sense to see if we would need to hire more employees for a certain time of the year or not.

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Week 9 Clear: Moore's Law

This week we watched lectures and read about Moore's Law. This was a pretty easy week in terms of information and terminology as we have already discussed some of the material earlier in the course. This week we did discuss Gordon Moore and learned a little about his history and how Carver Mead coined the phrase "Moore's Law." Moore's Law refers to a 4 page paper that Moore wrote in Electronics magazine discussing how chip performance, per dollar, doubles every 18 months and how next generation chips should be twice as fast & cost the same as 18 months ago.

Image Created by: (David Feng)  http://www.flickr.com/photos/fenng/4095211300/

We also discussed Price Elasticity, which is: The rate at which demand fluctuates with price change. High price elasticity: drop in price results in a spike in demand. In everyday situations, think of the price of gas as having Low price elasticity: As the price of gas increases, people change their driving habits and in turn are more conservative, resulting in using less gas or Decreasing the demand. Much of this material I have already encountered in both my Micro and Macro Economics classes and my Marketing class, so I was already familiar with most of this material.

We also discussed the 5 Waves of Computing:

1. 1960's-Mainframe Computing

2. 1970's-Introduction of mini-computers

3. 1980's-Personal Computing

4. 1990's-Mobile Computers

5. 2000's-Ubiquitous Computers

Another important item of discussion is as a manager in the business world, the concept of having a "Crystal Ball." This is knowing or anticipating what will happen in the future with technology based on the past and being able to make decisions for computing technology in the business world, based on costs and time.

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Presentation and Web 2.0 Project

It was easier said than done. The Presentation project seemed easy enough and fun. When it came time to choose a subject, is when reality set in and I realized this was not going to be a cake-walk.

Preparing the ideas and creating the storyboard was the second obstacle I had to overcome as I have seen these for movies and such, but never paid any attention to them and were turned off by them so for me to face that alone was pretty difficult, luckily there were plenty of resources to gather information about creating a storyboard and I was able to put one together. After the storyboard I had to get down and dirty and start looking for images and other information that I wanted to use in my presentation.

Like I said this project seemed fun and easy from the beginning. It was one of those "Don't judge the book by it's cover moments." I mean, I did have fun creating the presentation, I just wish I had better hardware like a better mic and better software like garageband or something to easily create background music or something. Overall, with what I had to work with, I feel I did a good job, not great, but good.

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I feel that my presentation did flow well and I answered questions to how I would make the changes that I brought up. After watching my presentation a few times, I now feel that my introduction could have been more interesting, something to intrigue the audience or capture their attention. I didn't have any real data to validate any claims, it just seemed more common sense type of stuff that we should do to make these changes at my employer. Also one fellow classmate mentioned that one of my slides was hard to read and after reviewing it, I have to agree somewhat, it was a somewhat cluttered slide, kind of on the edge of being too cluttered I think. But I didn't want to make any changes because any changes to the slide would have made it feel more cluttered and expanding the information into two slides would have been too much. Also I feel that I did flow very well with the presentation, as I rehearsed it many times and had recorded the slide lengths in order to focus on narrating it at the appropriate time.

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Week 7 Clear: Software in Flux

This week's material was so jam packed full of good stuff it is hard to contain and will probably be hard to retain! We began with Open Source Software (OSS) and learned about the many types, the benefits, and the essentials. It appears that there are so many benefits to using OSS such as: great quality, high reliability, great flexibility, low associated costs, and an end to predatory vendor lock in. Also the access to the source code gives it a great advantage over commercial software as there is the ability to fix bugs yourself, modify behavior of the program, and add features.

Here is a brief history of Open Source Software!

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The Economics of Open Source Software
Learning how companies can afford to distribute this type of software was very interesting. I have used open source software applications in the past where they were given to me for free. Though most of the applications I got my hands on were of lower quality and I have not really kept using. But they were free, I now know why, as the companies either take donations (smaller companies that have this type of software for use) or they charge for support, which can get very pricey.

The Cloud
Another topic that was pretty clear to me was somewhat new to me, at least most of it was. When the new iPhone 4s came out, it was all about the "Cloud" and I was like what is this cloud stuff they are talking about? Is this something new? But after reading this material and watching the lectures I just found out it was basically the Internet, in a way. Personal cloud based computing, such as, Gmail, YouTube, and Spider Oak are just a few examples of this type of computing. So many of the services we currently use are cloud based and most of us don't really know it, or pay attention to it. Enterprise cloud based computing now, is a little different, there are monthly subscriptions, they are highly scalable, and you can write your own.

Cloud computing options seem infinite and are the way of the future, as it frees up disk space on your physical machines and is ever evolving. It also frees up IT staff and costs to focus your resources.

Virtualization
I can't lie...this week wasn't all clear! When it came to virtualization, it was like I got hit in the head and was left dazed and confused. It actually started out very confusing, but as I went on in the lectures and reading, it started to become more clear, though I know I am not ready to jump in to try doing this on any of machines at this time and probably not in the near future either.

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Day 1: Or is it day 2? Well on with the point. I am typing my first blog for my ISM3004 class @ The University of Florida. I have never been into blogs or blogging, just because I have my own life to worry about and live and do not have time to read about what other people are doing, I really didn't care. But being that it is a requirement for my course I am open to exploring this type of social media. I am still unsure of what exactly I am supposed to be doing, but will learn as I go I guess. I have heard of tags or labels, as they are called here, but never really learned about them. The only tagging I had done was tagging pictures on Facebook and such. I am supposed to use various icons, but don't see any here, I do see the ability to add Links, images, and videos so maybe I will do that in the future.
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San Andres, Colombia

Well I went ahead and added this picture that I took when on vacation at San Andres, Colombia. What a trip that was and such a beautiful place! You can visit the website for San Andres by clicking on the colorful wording. Oops, I hope I have not violated any copyright laws by linking the website, I guess I better read more on that.

I actually kind of like this and am finding myself not wanting to stop, but I don't want to bore anybody!! So I will sign off for now.......until next time!!



Much more to come!!

"Image copyright Christopher Ondrako, 2012"