Week 9: Clear - Evolution to ubiquitous computing

Over the years, the evolution of computing encompassed five (5) waves of evolution. In the 1960's, mainframe computing was available to large organizations. In the 1970's, mini-computers became available to many businesses. In the 1980's, personal computers became available to the public. In the 1990's, mobile computing devices became available and allowed a portable workforce. And finally, in the new mellinium, ubiquitous computing came to fruition. Ubiquitous computing is when information processing has been thoroughly integrated into our everyday lives.

There's a reason why ubiquitous computing is also referred to as "pervasive computing". There is little to no disconnect from these always-connected devices. There are advantaged and disadvantages to ubiquitous computing. Being always connected is something that not everybody wants. With an iPhone, you can send and receive calls, access the internet, balance your checkbook, and more. Then, to top that, some Bluetooth earpieces can be controlled with only your voice, which can then command your phone and it's abilities. Our society is now used to the instant gratification.

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Excel Project

Our class project for the past two weeks has been focused on Microsoft Excel. There are so many uses for this application.  This project got me intimate with Excel's various subject areas, such as data formatting, printing, formulas, cell addressing, functions, and pivot tables.  We began with an Excel "scavenger hunt", which essentially were about 30 tasks in Excel.  Then, we used the techniques and knowledge learned from the scavenger hunt to do data analysis and reporting for a large fitness center assessing the effectiveness of a particular workout.  The analysis of the data was enhanced by creating two pivot tables in this Excel workbook to aid in the owner's research.  One pivot table was to answer the question, "How many subjects reached their target heart rate during the 15 minute exercise window".  The other pivot table was to answer the question, "Which demographic groups got the most benefit from the exercise regimen".  A screen capture of the demographic results of this data is below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Pivot table showing average increase by gender and age group.

This project, like all projects in this course, has gone above and beyond my existing knowledge. I now have a better understanding of Excel's multiple uses, including pivot tables, functions, and absolute and relative cell addressing used in conjunction with formulas and functions. Using pivot tables allowed me to take a huge amount of structured data and create specific and understandable charts for analysis.  Also, absolute and relative cell addressing assisted in creating more dynamic formulas and functions.  I use Excel in my career for data analysis tasks, but with the knowledge I have gained from this project, I will be able to apply it to my job and exceed expectations when analyzing and reporting on data.

Presentation Project

This presentation project turned out to be a rewarding subject.  My career is in the information security field.  Part of my job is educating others about information security and how to protect yourself and the company's data.  I am leveraging this project with the presentation that I will give while together with our Corporate Security Group in a few weeks.  The previous presentation that I made for this summit two years ago belongs in the PowerPoint "hall of shame".  This class has already proven valuable to my career.  After evaluating my submitted presentation tonight, against the evaluation rubric, my presentation lines up well, but lacked at least in one area.

I created a logical flow from the start with the "Top 5 ideas" flow.  I began with a question and ended asking for any questions from the audience.  I grabbed the attention within the first 30 seconds by starting out with a question to the audience rather than introducing myself first. I asked questions and brought up issues to the audience to spark interest.  The illustrations that were used related to the subject of the awareness tip.  More information could have been given, but time restraints only kept his list to five (5) tips and little explanation. I did not clutter my presentation slides.  As a learning reflection, before I took this class, my presentation slides were created with too much clutter.  Although, I did not give any websites to reference to find more information. 

URL of my presentation:  http://my.brainshark.com/ISM3004-presentation-project-BRADSHAW-Security-Awareness-636682325

As I watched another student's presentation, they had background music during the presentation.  Background music should be at a very low volume to ensure the speaker is clearly heard.  I leaned on the safe side for my recording and did not have any background music playing.  The peer presentation that I watched gave a well presented Credits ending.  After I viewed theirs, I realized that mine lacked in detail.  I should have credited websites on where to validate claims.  

Week 7: Clear - Saas Adoptions

Software as a Service, also known as SaaS, is a software distribution business model where the software being used by the customer is delivered over the internet and is hosted by the vendor on their servers and storage systems.  SaaS is part of the service delivery models used in Cloud Computing.  The other cloud computing service delivery models include Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).   From an enterprise perspective, these cloud computing service models can be very beneficial in several ways, given that the usage is provisioned with a non-disclosure agreement or contract and is approved by your enterprise's leadership and information security organization. Customer benefits of SaaS cloud computing include; near 100% availability and up-time, anywhere access, lower electricity costs, space savings, hardware and software maintenance is handled by the provider, and more time to dedicate to other business projects and processes. 

My current employer, a financial services company, uses various cloud computing vendors for different purposes.  Our email messaging spam engine is Microsoft Forefront for Exchange, hosted "in-the-cloud" with no hardware or software maintenance needs on our end, we only are responsible for our desired spam configurations.  Also, we use a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), which includes system event log monitoring and management, 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC), and managed hardware and software for the log collection system.  The events are correlated locally, with the vendor's hardware and software in our data centers, then securely sent "to the cloud" in the MSSP's two Network Operations Centers for monitoring and cloud for monitoring, analysis, and storage.  Using an MSSP has proven to be a time saver, in which we do not have to worry about maintaining the hardware and software of the security monitoring system, plus they are a security subject matter expertise partner.  Both of these cloud computing technologies has enabled our company and employees to focus our time and abilities on other projects and tasks.

Photo taken from: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3428/3746242768_92d2a03e87.jpg

Week 6: Clear - Application Software development

Should you build or buy your company's application software? It's a fairly difficult decision to make. Both have their pros and cons, but like every business decision you must think strategically and base it on what the business needs. If your company needs a certain functionality and it is available, either commercially or in open-source, buying will give you the benefits of support, expertise, and possibly training. On the other hand, if your company needs application functionality that is NOT available, either commercially or in open-source, having it built from the ground up is probably best. Having it built essentially has only one benefit, it's customized for your organization's needs. On the other hand, there are downfalls to having it built, which include limited support, expertise, and flexibility to change with your business.





About six (6) years ago I was employed with a private investigation firm. My primary responsibilities there were IT support and computer forensics. The company's primary software for conducting their reconciliation service was a custom built application by a father-son development team. It was built using Microsoft Visual FoxPro. I did not have any experience in software development, but my company managers began having me shadow the application developer and learn as a backup developer. There was not enough time and resources for me to become a master of all three trades at once. The development transitioned to a web application in Active Server Pages (ASP) with database transactions. This developer did a great job at building software that enhanced business efficiency.

Microsoft Visual FoxPro: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms950411.aspx

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Week 5: Clear - Presentation Challenges

Giving a presentation to any size crowd can be a daunting task.  To make it a success and a great experience for both the audience and the presenter, there are several challenges the presenter must overcome.    All or most of the challenges can be aided by more preparation and learning.

One challenge is getting your point across without writing everything you are saying on the presentation slides.  While we want the audience to remember our words and message, it is best to not write it all out on your presentation slides.  Some outcomes of this are lost attention of the audience and difficulty reading because of small font size and high signal-to-noise ratio. The audience will stop focusing on your presentation and start losing your support.  It is critical to retain the audience's attention, so avoid the clutter and treat your audience as if you are watching your own presentation.

Another challenge, for a large majority, is presenting without showing your nervousness or anxiety.  This can be aided by relaxation breathing and most importantly preparation. Make sure you study the subject, plan, and practice. Ask for feedback and prepare in front of family or friends to practice.

I will actually be doing a presentation in front of my co-workers and colleagues during the second week of March , in three weeks.  There will be about 60-75 people in the audience.  I will be doing my presentation on security awareness, both physical and information security.  Taking this course is helping me prepare for and do well on the presentation.  There are several presentation "don'ts" that I have done in the past.  After watching this week's lectures and reading the related content, I have learned how to overcome some presentation challenges.

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Week 4: Clear - Competition Driving Innovation

A prime example of competition driving innovation is the relationship and history between Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) and Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder).  This has lead to so many technology improvements and innovations throughout the years of these two companies and entrepreneurs.  Their ideas and value-chain strategy has led to stronger products and more benefits for the  consumer.  For Microsoft, they started out by developing DOS and have since dominated the personal computer, gaming, and enterprise server computing markets. For Apple, they started out by creating very user friendly computers, then later dominated the mobile device market with the Macbook, iPod, iPhone, and most recently, the iPad.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is no longer with us.  On October 5 2011, cancer took his life too soon at such an early age.

Apple iTunes was the first of its kind to deliver digital music to the world in a centralized, quick, legal, and efficient manner without having the consumer leave their house to purchase music.  This allowed for iTunes to utilize technology and the internet as a distribution and promotional channel.  Apple collaborated with the recording industry, both musicians and record companies, to deliver music quicker to the consumer than ever before.  This was introduced in a time where music was being shared illegally at a high rate without a mature and centralized digital distribution channel.  Now,  in 2012, iTunes has developed into more than just digital music offering TV shows and movies for rent and purchase, digital books, and most recently iTunes U.  The devices that play all of this content include the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Come to think of it... this blog post is being created on both my iPad and iPhone.  

R.I.P. Steve Jobs 1955-2011

The following URL provides insight into how Apple changed music distribution and promotion. Reference URL: http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/a/how-apple-changed-music.htm