Week 13: Clear - Power of Social Media

Businesses, large and small, can leverage social media channels in many ways.  Although, it is crucial to have a strategy for your business to approach your business's social media channels.  A company must know what their end goal is to effectively select the best social media outlet.  Businesses must leverage social media to focus on engaging with customers, both current and prospective.  Now with social media, businesses are talking with customers, not just at customers.

An example of real-world use of Facebook for a small business is Adrienne Frankenfield Photography.  This business is owned by a high-school friend of mine and is used to share and promote her photography work.  Within the company's posts, the owner/photographer posts tutorials, special prizes, samples of recent photo sessions, and interaction with fans and customers. With Facebook's huge user base, there are endless possibilities of customer reach through their large network.

Reference URL: https://www.facebook.com/AdrienneFrankenfieldPhotography.

Week 12: Clear - Living in a Networked Society

Never did I foresee that my grade-school classmates would be just a click away.   With the power of social networking and the internet, networked computers have allowed the world to connect to each other  and share photos, videos, updates and more with each other.  We are able to connect with family, friends, and acquaintances, close and distant.  When  I graduated from high-school in 1998, I expected that most of my classmates were going to be distant and possibly unreachable.  Facebook and other social networking sites have allowed me to connect to distant relatives and friends throughout my life.  My wife has even connected with teachers, early classmates, and  friends from Puerto Rico.  Thankfully, distance is no longer a reason to be disconnected to the ones that you know and love.

With so much social networking  and net openness, comes an increased need for safety and security.  So much of our lives are now publicly accessible on the internet.  Even though social networking  sites and such promote  and offer safety and security, by default your social profiles and information is public.  Information aggregators, such as www.Spokeo.com, gather information from multiple publicly accessible websites, even public records such as county records and home purchases. As users and inhabitants of social networking, we must always keep security in  mind when using not only the internet, but more importantly any Web 2.0 technologies.    

URL Reference: SPOKEO.COM

Picture taken from http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7012/6521973071_ab919eb642_m.jpg (Creative Commons)

Week 11: Clear - Data Challenge for IT and Security

Data and information is critical to any business to function and be profitable.  Data is raw facts and figures without context.  Information is data that is put into context to answer questions and support decisions.  Essentially, you cannot have one without the other.  Having data and information at your businesses fingertips brings many responsibilities and challenges.  From an Information Technology perspective, data has to be stored somewhere and be accessible to be of any value.  Unfortunately, data and information continues to grow at rapid rates and are relied upon more and more.  The storage space of data has to grow with the increased amount of data being accumulated.  In addition, business is reliant on the data and information being stored to the point that it has to be readily accessible at all times.  If businesses cannot accept any more data or the data is inaccessible, the business loses money by the minute.   There are a few headaches that come along with  

On top of the storage and accessibility of data and information, businesses now have to adhere to strict regulatory and compliance legislation of the data.  This is true in many industries including; healthcare, financial, education, manufacturing, and retail.  Even if an organization does not process financial data or healthcare data, they have a responsibility to protect the personal records of its employees.  These compliance regulations include PCI-DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, GLBA, and FISMA, to name a few.  Complying with such regulations can be costly, but now it is the "cost of doing business."  Not complying with such government standards and regulations will ultimately cost a company its business through fines, lawsuits, and lost reputation.  When scoping and researching information technology hardware and software, adherence to compliance must be thought of from the very beginning instead of the end or after implementation.  This has caused an increase in the cost of doing business, but at the same time has allowed for many job opportunities in the Security Compliance career field.

Database Project

Out of all the years that I've worked in the Information Technology & Security field, I have never used Microsoft Access as much as in this course. These past few weeks in this course have taught me many things in Access. Working with databases can be quite daunting, but with desktop database management tools such as Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro, databases are manageable by non-IT gurus. Using tables, queries, forms, and reports allow for more efficient data management. Access allows for methods of answering tough questions and relationships in datasets.

In addition to the instructions given for the database project, a few more steps can be done to improve the Members database and make it even more functional. Inner-join, data field validation, and drop down combo box are options for easier form input and efficient output. Also, if there are membership dues, another table, form, and report can be made to track the payments. This additional membership dues table can be a relational link with the MemberID primary key. Using an "inner-join" a query can be run against both tables and provide a combined report as if it was a single data table. This can effectively be used to manage the membership database of this club.

Week 10: Clear - Compatibility of Access

Among database management tools, Microsoft Access is hands down the easiest to use. Microsoft Access is a desktop database management tool, which comes bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office suite.  Access allows a fairly proficient computer user to create databases for just about anything.  The use cases of databases are endless. You can store data in a relational database, run queries on the data, create forms for data entry, and create stunning reports analysis of the data to be more understandable.  One limitation of Access is its availability for Mac users, because for some reason this software is not compatible with Mac computers.


Microsoft Access is a great database management solution for start-up companies, small businesses, and home offices.  With its wide range of abilities and features, its low cost of purchasing and ownership, and ease of use, Access is the software of choice for many.  Microsoft Office products are very user friendly and are well documented , so if you need help with making or managing your database, help is readily available.

At my previous employer, they relied on a self-made Access database program with forms for data entry and reporting.  The fields used calculations to reconcile companies' escrow bank sheets.  The owner of the company created the program using Access 2000 and used it in production for servicing their clients.  They soon grew out of the custom Access database program and had to transition to a more robust relational database.  At the time, it was superseded by creating and managing the companies relational databases using Microsoft Visual Fox Pro 8.

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.

Image from: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/90/274169938_56482dfedf.jpg

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.