Week 14- Muddy

A cloud. It just kind of floats up in the air on its own. It doesn't need any support. It doesn't need to be physically connected to something. "Cloud technology" applies some of these same concepts to the computing world. Cloud computing is an Internet based technology that connects the resources, software, hardware, and other parts of individual computers together. Using this technology someone might only need a computer monitor and keyboard, no storage hardware. Everything that you do on your computer can be stored elsewhere. Power can be shared and distributed as needed from different sources. It is refered to a cloud because of the picture of multiple computers being virtually connected.

This cloud technology is very helpful and useful in the business environment. It can be very economically benefical. A business can allocate its resources efficiently. If a business has only a limited need for a computer, it does not have to fully invest in a complete storage system that is made for a lot of information. It can simply use power and storage as needed through a host source. Also, a business can buy software in a way that may be best for them. Say a company would only have two or so people using a program at a time. Then they can purchase access to that program accordingly. For example, the use of five Excels at a time. 

Project- Secure E-mail

Article- Why Facebook's "social inbox" may not be right for business

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently launched a new communications idea. He is creating a communications account that is linked to peoples Facebook. This account can include email, IM, text messaging, and other forms of contact. This "social inbox" groups all forms of your communication with a person. Facebook also knows who your friends are, so it filters out a lot of spam and junk mail. This article is warning that this might not be a good idea for business communications. After all, Facebook and this particular idea targets the youth. Business transactions need to be more secure. Facebook has a track record of privacy issues. Businesses need to stick to secure email providers.

Week 13- Clear

There is a lot of information out there on the Internet. Some of that information is personal and not for everyone to have access to. If personal information gets into the wrong hands, it can be detrimental. Examples of some of this personal information is bank account info, social security info, and driver's license info. If someone can get this information over the Internet they can steal people's money, assets, identity, and more. So, it is important for people to make sure that their information on the Internet is safe. A good place to start for Internet Security is to have passwords.

Any website that you have an account with that contains personal information of yours, should protect your information with user names and passwords. A user name is a type of identification for a customer. It is usually your name or your email address, something that you can easily remember. A password is a private collection of characters that goes along with the user name. Most networked systems require the correct user name and password combo to access the information. Passwords protect peoples info from cybercrime. Cybercrime is when people commit online illegal acts. Hackers are people who try to break into systems, plant viruses, steal information, and do other illegal things via the web. These hackers are usually very smart, so to have a good password that they cannot figure out is safe. The longer the password and the more characters that you use, greatly increase how secure your info is.

Extra Credit- Avatar

Making this avatar was fun and easy. It was cool to see all of the options that they had for the different body features. This avatar actually looks a lot like me. This was very easy to use. I didn't have to register to use the website or pay for anything. I just simply followed the steps and tried to create a computer person that looked similar to my real self. You can use avatars to show other people in virtual worlds an idea of what you look like without getting to personal or use it for fun to be whoever you want to be.

Week 12- Clear

Do you ever wonder how computers and information are connected to each other? They are connected by networks. A network is a collection of devices connected together by transmission media. For example, a business can decide that they are going to provide all of their employees with computers that are connected together by a network. Advantages to this is that the company can control what programs and tools are available to each person. There are other advantages as well like better communication. Through networks people can communicate by email, chat, blog, and many other ways. Also, through networking you can share software and hardware. For example, many computers in a computer lab can be connected to one printer instead of the costly and inefficient alternative of each computer having its own. And say you want all of the computers to have Microsoft Office. Through networking, you can by a site license, for a discounted price, that allows all devices on that network access to the software.

Some common types of networks are LAN, MAN, and WAN. Local area network (LAN) is a network that connects devices in a limited area. A home, business office, or a school lab would be examples of this type of network. A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that connects LANs in a city or a town. A cable provider like COX or a telephone company would be an example of people who manage MAN networks. Finally, a wide area network (WAN) connects extremely large areas like countries or the world using a communications channel. The Internet is the biggest WAN in the world.

Extra Credit- Voice Over IP and Video Capture

Skype Video Recording

I really enjoyed doing this extra credit assignment. I had heard about Skype before but I didn't know that it was free and really easy to setup and use. I have recorded videos using the webcam on my computer, but this was my first time using this type of software to communicate live with other people. It is cool because in doing this assignment I got my sister to set up a Skype too. I am excited because now I can talk to everyone back at home in a whole new way!

Week 11- Muddy

Information. It is what drives society today. Think of everything we use that is technological. How would our lives be without smart phones, televisions, ipads, and  more. If you think about it, information technolgy is amazing and the people who develop these gadgets and ideas are mindblowing too. Who is going to come up with the next big idea? How does an idea turn into an actual product that you see on the shelves in the stores ready for sale? And then how do designers explain to the public how to use this new divice that is a change?

These are all parts of the system development cycle. This is a five step cycle. The first step of the cycle is planning. During this stage you would gather a team together, go over your plans for the new information system, and take suggestions on what should be done. The next step is analyzing the plan. Here you would investigate your idea, figure out the cost/benefits. Then you would design a new system. The next step would be toimplement your design. Here you would install, test, and train people on the system. Finally, develop maintainance and support progams for the system. Also, set up some kind of security to ensure that your system is safe.

Database Project

In this project I learned how to effectively use the program Microsoft Access. I had never used the program before this. Access is used for managing databases. Large tables of information can be easily sorted, grouped, and edited in many ways. Microsoft Access is a relational database system so information can be connected based on common data. In this project I was keeping a database on the members of a gym. I created a table that contained the fields of relevant information like names, addresses, and other descriptional information. Using this core database of information, I then sorted the info to show me just the members that had left the gym in the past 6 months. I then created forms that showed the information I chose about each customer. Finally, I created a report on the data I had pin pointed in the table. I am fortunate to have learned how to use the Microsoft Access program.

There are many advanced features in Microsoft Access. One of those features is the ability to establish a relationship between common fields. Information can be grouped into different sections but say there is a common field in multiple groups. For example, there might be a group with employee sales info and a group with employee contact info. Microsoft Access can relate the info because it recognizes that the employee names are the same in both groups. This leads to another great Access feature which is the ability to easily edit large amounts of information. If the name of a product changes ,for instance, I would have to make the change only once, and Access would apply the change to all relevant data. Normalization is the ability to not have redundant info and this feature of Access helps with that.

Week 10- Muddy

Many people are familiar with Microsoft Word and Excel, but have never used Microsoft Access. I was one of those people. Access is a database software program. It is used for filing data and information. I had never used it for anything before, so everything about the program was completely new to me. It was very confusing to try to learn how to use a complex software program in one lesson. I think that actually doing some of the applications in the Database project will help me feel more comfortable with the program. Also, I have never really had the need for a program like this yet. I can see how this can be helpful in a business environment because you are using large amounts of related information. But I found that even though I was amazed at all that this program can do, I still wouldn't use it very much for personal use.

Some of the concepts behind using Microsoft access are that databases store all data in tables. The data can be categorized into different fields and the fields can be connected to each other if they have a relationship in common. When entering data make sure that the data is not being redundant. That is, that it is not being entered in more than once. This is called Normalization. There are different data types that you can record. You can have text, numbers, dates, objects, and so on. In Access you can also create reports of the information and forms. You can work  your way through Access by using the ribbon bar at the top of the screen. It has different tabs to help you through, just like in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

Week 9- Clear

Everyone uses the internet in today's times, but there are some things about the online world that people don't know. For example a URL,which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, has four different parts to it. A protocol, a domain name, a path, and file name. The protocol is the http://part/ of it. tfhe domain name for example would be yahoo and the path would be .com. Finally the file mane would be music/beyonce if thats the page you went to http://www.yahoo.com/music/beyonce. Also, did you know that each specific page on the web has it's own unique web address. This is how the computer knows where to take you.

The web is used for four different reasons. To learn, to feel, to connect, and to trade. Search engines help people to learn about info on the internet. some popular search engines are google, Yahoo, and Bing. Next, to feel on the internet is entertainment. People watch TV on the internet, they check scores for sports , they keep up on all the lastest fashion and celebrity news. I would say much of the use of computers comes from this category. Another is connecting. Social networking is the new telephone, the new reunion, the new newspapar, the new gossip. Facebook, myspace, and twitter are changing the way the world communicates. And last but not least, trade. More and more people are buying online now. You can get things personalized, shipped right to you, and get exactly what you were looking for even though the store was out of stock. Internet technology is changing the culture and the world.

Friends of Jaclyn- Presentation Project

Support the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation-  Presentation URL

In this project we learned about how to give effective presentations. There is a lot of media on the Internet that allows people's online experience to be more interactive using more advanced communication technology. This advanced Internet communication is called Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is interactive. No longer is the Internet a place that people go to just as a good source to gain information. There are live chat rooms. Social networks are booming. There are even Internet communities that share thoughts, pictures, and ideas about specific topics of interest. In the business world being familiar with Web 2.0 is essential. Companies are going global, which means there are alot of computerized presentations and conference meetings. In the project I learned how to give a presentation entirely online. This goes beyond creating the standard PowerPoint, but goes even further incorporating  tools like video, audio, graphics, and effects. The media program, Ignite Cast, that I used was easy to use and free. This knowledge is going to help me in my future business career.

Below is the self evaluation of my presentation. I also did a peer evaluation. Looking at what my classmates presented was really interesting. There were some really cool ones. The peer evaluation helped in finalizing my own presentation. I saw what types of things that my presentation should include. I also got to learn from my peers. I would look at how someone did theirs and get different ideas about how I could improve my own. This was a great project.

	Missing or lacking	Meets the minimum but could be improved	Excellent
Is there a logical flow and sequence of content? How could it be improved?			Yes, the content is presented in a logical flow.
Does the presenter anticipate questions and answer them in the right place? At what points did you have questions that were not answered?			Anticipated questions were answered. What is the foundation? How does it relate to me? What can I do?
Did the presenter grab your attention in the first 30-60 seconds?		Didn’t really grab attention that well.
Did the presenter ask questions and spark your curiosity?		Questions weren’t relevant to my topic.
Did the presenter set the context with a concise explanation? Is it clear what the presenter is trying to share?			Context of the presentation is clear and explained.
Did the presenter validate any claims?			Validated organization with personal connection.
Did the presenter avoid inconsistencies and errors, typos and unbelievable claims?			No errors
How well did the presenter avoid clutter?			Good use of pictures, bullets, white space
What did the presenter do to ensure readability?			Used different fonts and didn’t overcrowd.
Did the presenter say it, and then show it or did he/she read the slides?			Said it, then showed it

Week 7- Clear

We have all been the victim of a painfully boring presentation before. Heavy eyelids, wondering eyes, deep sighs, and slouched bodies are never good body language signs to see while your the one giving a presentation. So how do you make your presentation one that everyone enjoys and remembers? Some keys things to do are pick an interesting topic, keep your context clear and to the point, and use visuals to enhance the presentation. First, make sure you pick an interesting topic. Know your audience and pick a topic that they can relate to. For example, when presenting financial advice to college students, talk about something relevant like ways to save instead of retirement planning which doesn't really apply to their lives. Next, make sure to present your topic in a clear way. You, being an expert, might know every little detail about your topic, but remember the audience doesn't want to be overloaded with too much information. Giving too many facts and irrelevant information is a sure way to lose your audiences attention. Then, use visuals to help you. Audiences like to be able to see what your talking about. It helps people learn and stay focused. PowerPoint's, pictures, tables, or finished products are some good examples of visuals for presentations.

Now you know some tips to help you make a great presentation, here are some pointers on how to present a great presentation. This is often the more difficult part of the presentation, the delivery. These tips might take some practice because becoming a good speaker is hard for a lot of people. Make sure that you speak loud and clear. Try to avoid saying words like "um" and "like" a lot. Make eye contact with the audience frequently, do not just read straight from you notes or off of the PowerPoint. Let the audience know that you know about the subject. Try not to stay in the same spot the whole presentation. Move around in moderation, even use hand gestures create a more relaxed feel. Now your presentation will be really good.

Excel Project

In this project I learned how to effectively use the functions of the Microsoft Excel program. Not only did I gain knowledge, but I also got to apply the knowledge that I learned through an activity. In the project, students were told that we were to analyse a spreadsheet that contained data from a study about people's heart rate during exercise. The first couple of assignments were about basic Excel formatting, which included centering information, naming spreadsheets, and creating new columns. Then we were to manipulate rows and columns to figure additional information. An example would be that we had to create a new column that displayed a target heart rate percentage using formulas and the existing data. After that we used the printing functions to make the data easy to read when printed. Headers and footers that displayed titles, names, and page numbers were on every sheet. Also, the orientation was changed to landscape and all of the columns fit on one page. The first two rows of data contained column titles and were frozen so that they appeared at the top of every page. Finally,we made pivot tables like the one below to display a quick summary of the results of the data.

Avg Percent Increase in Heart Rate Pivot Table

I learned very much from this Excel project. Before, I didn't know much about of the non-basic functions on Excel. Through this project I learned how to use the formulas like IF, AVG, COUNT, and so on. These are very convenient if you know how to use them and now I feel they will help me in school and in the business environment after I graduate. Also, I didn't know the pivot table functions. It is so cool that Excel can do all that sorting and calculating so quickly and efficiently. One of the biggest helpful things that I learned are the printing options. There have been so many times where things you are trying to do just don't come out clean and crisp, portraying all of the work that you put in. But in Excel, you can get projects to turn out very nicely.

I really enjoyed learning this practical information.

Week 6- Muddy

If I were to go back in time, I would be excited to tell people all about the innovations and technology that we have in today's time. But take image technology for example. As I think about it, they would ask me "Well, how does that work? How did they do that?" and quite frankly, I wouldn't know. I see pictures and use cameras, but I didn't know any of the concepts behind what makes these things display images. After some research and gaining knowledge of the subject, I found it interesting how images appear in our everyday lives.

Images are made up of many little dots of color, or pixels. These pixels arrange in a way that come together as a picture. A common type of graphic is called Raster. It uses the groups of pixels to create a "bitmap" which we perceive as a picture. Using Raster graphics, problems occur when you try to expand, zoom, and scale pictures. If you zoom in far enough, the picture gets distorted because you start to see the groups of pixels instead of one clear picture. This is when you get blocky or jagged pictures. Vector graphics gets rid of that problem. It arranges the picture using "primitives" or by geometric shapes that can be created mathematically. This way if you want to zoom in, math can be using to scale the picture down while keeping the quality of the image.Video: Raster vs. Vector Images



Jagged Raster Graphics


Images can also be compressed to save filing space. Technology has found different ways to make image files simpler. One way is called lossless compression. This method eliminates redundancy in the pixels. Lossy compression, which is another compression technique, discards some unneeded things in the image. Like images, audio and video files can also be compressed. This is an important fact to know in the business environment. Because a business has to keep record of many things, it is always key to know how to save space, which can help you save money.

Week 5- Muddy

Confused about Excel?

Technology is changing the world. And although technology is making tasks easier for us, getting to know how to use the technology is not always easy. Microsoft Excel is a program that more and more people are using in a variety of fields. Excel is a spreadsheet program that has become an essential part of the business environment. Because Excel can do so many complex things, I have found it confusing sometimes just to figure out how to get it started on the simple things I want it to do. Often times after multiple attempts of trying to apply formulas, I end up manually doing the calculations and then typing them in. After studying the Excel program some, I found these tasks to be much easier than before.



Once you learn what you are doing, Excel will make your business life so much easier. Formulas in Excel can be very helpful. To make a formula type an equals sign in your cell. Then simply tell the computer what formula you want to perform. For example, if you want the sum of cell A1 and cell B1, in another cell type =A1+B1. Excel will do the calculation for you. If you want to do this function for multiple cells, you can drag to copy the formula to other cells too. Excel follows the order of operations. The order in which it performs calculations is parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and then subtraction. Excel also has functions. Some of the more common Excel functions are AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, and SUM. In a cell click the equals sign, select one of these functions, and then select a range of data. Learning how to work in Excel can really be beneficial.   

Week 4- Clear

Application software are the programs on your computer that you use everyday. These types of software perform functions that are designed to assist users with personal tasks. It is especially important in the business environment to have a good understanding of the different types of application software. Business application software includes programs like word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and management programs. Graphics and multimedia are another category of application software. There is personal/home software which are programs to help people with finances, taxes, entertainment, editing, and things like that. Communications, which is web browsing, email, blogging, instant messaging and so on, are also a major category of application software. click here for more categories

Application software can be categorized as either horizontal applications or vertical applications. Horizontal applications refers to programs used in all different industries and by all different people for multiple different uses. An example of a horizontal type of application software is the web browser Internet Explorer. This software can be used by a scientist to do research, a professional baseball player to look up stats, or by a kid to play a computer game.  On the other hand, vertical application software are designed to meet the specific needs of a particular market. An example of this could be a Walmart point-of-sales system. This would be a systems designed specifically for managing the retail of  Walmart merchandise.

Week 3- Clear

When people have an object that is no longer useful to them they throw it away. Although this may seem logical, it is not always the proper solution. Personal computers should not just be trashed when the owner doesn't need it anymore. Computers contain metals and chemicals that are hazardous to the environment. They should be taken or shipped to professionals that know how to properly recycle and dispose computer parts. Another option for someone who is getting rid of their old computer to change to an upgrade is to donate it. In this situation, the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" could be true.

Find A Company Near You That Recycles Electronics

A very important factor to keep in mind when getting rid of a computer is that the computer still contains your information. It is especially important to clear the data from your computer before giving it away. Personal information, private business files, images, and everything that could be saved on your personal computer needs to be erased. A hardware system that is made to protect your disposed information is Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) Link to DBAN. This overwrites computer data over three times so that information cannot be seen. If your hard drive is a magnetic disk, getting it degaussed makes information irretrievable. Other ways to protect your work would be to burn or cross-cut shred your memory hardware.

Week 2- Muddy

Most people in today's society know how to use a personal computer, but most people do not know the different components that make up the computer. I found computer hardware to be somewhat of a difficult concept to understand. I think what makes this subject challenging is that to gain a true understanding of the material it will take years of studying and learning. So I can only scratch the surface of the concepts about how a computer's hardware works because by trying to get a deeper understanding, I get into things that are over my head.

Although computer hardware is a subject that can be tough to learn, after watching some lectures and doing other research I have a better understanding of the components of a computer. First, there are the obvious harware parts of a computer like the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse. Inside the computer there are more parts that are stored on the motherboard. One of those parts is the CPU or central processing unit. This is the peice that syncs all of the computer functions. Processor cores read and run program information. Computers today often have dual and multiple cores. A turbo boost is the computers way of saving energy by only running the necessary core processors. Another way the computer saves energy is through caches. Caches remember recent and frequently used data. A computers memory is stored in its RAM and video can be connected through things like VGA and HDMI.

Week 1: Clear

The internet. It is where this generation finds the answers to all of their questions. For example, "Where is the nearest mall? When is that assignment due? How do I get season tickets? What is my favorite celebrity doing at this very moment?" The internet is a tool that gives an individual access an unimaginable amount of information. Search engines and subject directories are how a computer narrows down the massive expanse of data to give each person exactly what they are looking for. 

Search engines are an essential part of the internet. General search engines use "bots" to collect data from the web. These bots index and sort the data so that information can be found quickly. Then, when a person is looking for something, they type in keywords about their topic of interest and the search engine gives them different websites that contain those keywords. There are general search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing that basically search the entire web. You can narrow your search by using search engines that search only specific areas. For example, you can search videos, images, news, and search engines.

Search Engine- Google

Another type of information search is subect directories. Sometimes using general search engines can leave you with hundreds of pages of irrelevant results. Computers are only machines, but the human mind can process and analyse information. Subject directories are internet data sorted and organized by actual people. Therefore, these searches often give more selective and related matches.

Subject Directory- Google