Chapter 10 Discussion

 What strategies can an organization use to respond to threats from competitors or take advantage of opportunities? How does an organization’s mission statement help to guide them in identifying and pursuing these strategies?

I am going to start with the second part of this question and address mission statements.  Mission statements are a short one or two line statement that summarizes a companies goals and values, in other words it’s reason for being.  Corporations have spent countless hours and millions of dollars to come up with a catchy mission statement, while most are just an exercise in creative writing some actually come up with a catchy mission statement.  Once they have come up with a mission statement, does the company actually follow it?  “Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence” was the mission statement for Enron.

While companies may think these mission statements are the greatest thing since sliced bread, most of their employees are making fun of them, yes I have been on both sides.  Most of their customers never read them, they are sort of like elevator music, you know it is there but you tend to block it out.  In a lot of cases management doesn’t follow it.

Most mission statements can be summed up as follows, “Make the most money without pissing off our customers or screwing over our employees very much”.  Therefore I say mission statements are a waste of time and money.

Now for the first part of the question, if a company supplies a quality product for a reasonable cost, with exceptional customer support while maintaining contented employees it shouldn’t have a problem.

The decision to create an information system is sometimes driven by new technology “that is, new hardware or software that makes it possible to automate a system or process” while others are driven by users’ the people who will ultimately use the information system. What are the pros and cons of each approach?

First let’s look at a technology driven system.  With a this system you are going to have the newest hardware and software, it is going to be cutting edge and up to date, but cutting edge comes with a price.  New technology is expensive since the R&D is still being paid for.  There are quite often bugs and design flaws since they have not all been worked out.  There may also have been older technology that would fit your needs at a cheaper price.

In a user driven system the hardware and software it tailored for the end user, hopefully having all the features, whistles and bells the user wants while completing the desired tasks.  The main problem with this system is that you can never full satisfy all the users.  What the finance department wants may not be what the maintenance department needs.  You then have to balance out the system to make the most people or the most important people happy and you may have to give up features that other users want.

Recall a time when you were frustrated by the way a program or operating system was functioning. How did you solve the problem? For example, did you use a help desk, user manual, or solve the problem on your own? Could the design of the program or operating system itself cause the problem? If so, what changes would you recommend to make the solution to your problem more obvious.

I once worked for a large corporation that had a small base here in Indianapolis.  Since the Indy base was the smallest in the organization the company decided that we didn’t need an on site IT department choosing instead to utilize the main base help desk and a subcontractor that showed up once a week.  The company also had some of the highest computer security I have ever encountered locking out everything that could be locked out all the way down to setting the time on your clock.  To make matters worse my job required me to work with some specialized software that was not installed on the standard work station.   I logged so many tickets that the IT department finally gave me limited admin rights to my work station.

This problem could have been solved by treating each user as an individual instead of writing blanket rules for all users.  Security is necessary and a requirement on any network, but security comes at a price, the more secure the less user friendly a system becomes.

Some users have suggested that user documentation should be developed before the system, and then used as the blueprint for system design. How would this approach change the development process and the system itself?

These users probably have their head up their butt.  Sure you develop an outline or a blueprint but to develop the documentation first seems like putting the the thrust in front of the rocket.  In most cases the documentation would change so much during the developmental process it would have to be rewritten anyway.

Assignment 3 – Resume Web Page

http://mypage.iu.edu/~lkprathe/CIT112/resume.html

Chapter 6 Lab

Freedom of Speech on the World Wide Web

Censorship and freedom of speech has always been an issue regardless of the media, print, spoken word, audio and video recordings, and now electronic data. When our forefathers created the first amendment that guarantees all citizens the right to free speech I don’t believe that their puritan thought could even have imagined the extent we would go. So where do we draw the line on censorship on the WWW or should there be censorship at all? If there is censorship who should be responsible for it?

First of all the WWW stands for world wide web, not United States wide web or the Christen wide web, or Larry Prather’s wide web, so censorship faces the same obstacles it has always faced, what values do you use? Let’s face it, what you find offensive may be completly different than what I find offensive. As an American we might find certain things offensive that are perfectly acceptable to someone in another country and vice versa, and I don’t even want to get into religious viewpoints. It is my opinion that governments should have very little right to censor regardless of the media format. Only certain issues, such as national security, should our government be able to exercise the right to censor content and given their past track record there should be some checks and balance in place for these instances, but that is another blog entry. Therefore if there is any censorship of the internet it cannot be by a specific government. Even forming an independent organization to regulate the content of the internet could have problems. My thought is that there should be no censorship of the internet other than at a personal level.

This doesn’t say there should be no rules, just no censorship. The internet was envisioned as a world wide network for the exchange of data. It’s creators never envisioned it becoming a major source of advertising. The most important aspect of advertising is to expose advertisement in the most people. Therefor many questionable practices have been used in this endeavor. Mass market emails, redirections, malicious software, webjacking domains, and various other unethical practices have been utilized to attract potential customers to sites that they would not normally visit. These are the practices that need to be censored, then let people decide what content they want to look at themselves.

So where does censorship lie? Should ISP’s be allowed to censor or filter your web browsing or email? The problem here lies in the fact that most communities offer limited ISP’s and in smaller communities there may only be one. So if you are not offered another option then, no they should not be allowed to filter all accounts, in any case you should know up front what your ISP is filtering. One example is a popular service used by quite a few ISP’s called Spam Cop. Although I agree that spam is a evil that needs to be corrected, this particular service uses a black list submitted by individuals. Once your email address is placed on this list it is almost impossible to get off of it. The problem is that quite often spammers use other email addresses to send out spam, therefor if your email is used by a spammer you may be blacklisted.

The next million dollar question is if parents should be allowed to censor what their children are downloading from the internet. Actually this is not a question of the internet but a question of parents athority over their children. My thought is yes, you are my house using my internet connection and my electricity and possible my computer so I have the right to censor what you do, if you don’t like it move out and pay the bills yourself.

In conclusion censorship on the internet, just like all censorship should be by the individual. There are lots of software and services that the individual can utilize for their own censorship and ISP’s should be able to provide filtering options, but in no way should a government be allowed to determine what we look at on the World Wide Web.

My Experience on the Web

My first experience with the world wide web was expensive.  I got one of those free AOL account disks, back then it was a 3 1/2 inch floppy and you got 10 hours free.  So I decided to try it out one weekend.  The next thing I knew it was Sunday morning I had been surfing the net for about 20 hours straight with only a break for a quick sandwich and to get a cold one out of the fridge every once in a while.  I took a nap and couldn’t wait to get on the internet again.  My free AOL account ended up costing me about $60 dollars that month and I knew I had to find a cheaper and better way to surf.

Over the years my habits on the web have changed only slightly.  My connection is faster, I can download a lot more information including audio and video, which was not available when I started.  The main thing that changed is when I started using the web it was mostly for entertainment and then information, but now I would say it is more for information and next entertainment, but then it is hard to separate the two since I am usually entertained by learning new information.

Chapter 6 Discussion

My Thoughts On Censorship and Free Speech 

First of all the WWW stands for world wide web, not United States wide web.  This country is made up of millions of people with different religious, political, and moral views.  Let’s face it, what you find offensive may be completely different than what I find offensive.  It is my opinion that governments should have very little right to censor regardless of the media format. Only certain issues, such as national security, should our government be able to exercise the right to censor content and given their past track record there should be some checks and balance in place for these instances, but that is another blog entry. Therefore if there is any censorship of the internet it cannot be by a specific government.

ISP’s do have the right to censor the data posted on web sites it hosts so long as the person is informed of this upfront.  In this sense I mean to say that they are welcome to refuse the content and not change it to their liking.  Also this is provided that the ISP is not a public ISP offered by a community unless there are other options available.  For example if I were to live in Podunk, IN and the only service provider in town was JesusCast where they only allowed Christian content and this company were subsidized by the Podunk town council, this would be wrong.

Several large companies, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco, have recently been providing blocking technology to foreign governments.  So is this wrong?  From a business standpoint if they don’t provide it some other company will.  From a moral standpoint since I don’t believe in censorship I feel it is wrong for a company to stick their nose in where it doesn’t belong, of course our government does it all the time.

When it comes to blocking software to block pornographic sites with software, yes I would and do use it, but it has to work well and it must give me the option to override the block if I want to.

Urban Legends Internet Myths

Two cave men are talking

Egaah – What you drawing on cave wall?
Umpp – I get mammoth steak recipe from Grumph, then find him make me pay 10 arrowheads. Now I give recipe to everyone.

Maybe I made this up, but folklore and myths have been around since man learned to communicate. People love a good story and it is even better if it is true. The only thing better than hearing a good true story is telling it to someone else. Now days we don’t even have to repeat the story, when we receive it just hit forward and send it out to 40 of our closest friends who intern send it to their list and so on and so forth until within 24 hours a million people know the story.

So what’s the big deal? Is it really hurting anyone? Yes it is. First of all when you send this out you are sending unreliable information. While in most cases this is not a big someone could be hurt by using this information at true. Second you are clogging up bandwith and email clients with worthless information. Finally if you are sending this information to a mass email list there is always a chance of offending someone on that list due to religious, moral, or political beliefs.

Chain letters are another idea that has been around since man learned to communicate. Quite often they are used for greed. Send a dollar to the person at the top of this list and add your name to the bottom then send to letter to 5 of your friends and when your name gets to the top of the list you will receive $500 dollars. I had a friend that used to send my religious based emails and quite often they were chain letters, pass this letter on to 5 of your friends and you will be blessed in 10 days with something good happening to you, type thing. I am not of her religion and frankly I found some of the letters offensive since they assumed that I believed in her god. When I finally asked her to refrain from sending me any emails that were religious in nature she took offense and quit emailing me anything.

So here is my rules for mass email etiquette.

1. Make sure everyone on you list wants to be on your list. Don’t just add peoples names without first asking and don’t be offended if someone requests to be taken off.
2. Make sure something is true before sending it as a fact. Googleing the title with the word hoax added, “Woman gives birth to Monkey hoax” for example, will usually list sites where you can find out if it is true or not. Otherwise make sure you let people know that it may be a urban legend and you just find it funny.
3. Unless your list is specifically for this purpose stay away from religious, political, and other controversial subjects.
4. Never post pornography unless you are sure it will not offend anyone on your list.
5. Be careful what you send, there is a fine line between sending out an offer for a product that you think is great and spam.
6. Never send chain letters.
7. Be sure to use BCC and strip the useless quotes and email addresses from your emails.
8. Finally these are not all the rules, just the ones I think are important.

Finally let’s face facts.

• Microsoft is not giving away money and Disney is not giving away vacations for sending an email to your friends. Face it, large corporations do not do business via chain letters.
• That little boy who was in the hospital, even if he did exist is probably 20 years old by now and tired of getting your emails wishing him a speedy recovery.
• If the email starts out “This is really true” than it probably isn’t.
• No matter how many emails you send to any number of people it is not going to change your luck, make you money, change your sex life, or assist you in the afterlife.
• If the story is about the persons best friends, sisters, brother-in-laws, mother, that person has no idea who originally told the story.
• Neiman Marcus does not sell cookie recipes for $200, in fact you can download the recipe from their web site for free.
• If the United States had dropped a plutonium bomb off the coast of California, don’t you think you would hear about it somewhere besides a mass email that had been forwarded 50 times before it got to you.

In conclusion before you hit that forward button on your email client, be sure you know what you are sending.

Web Site Design – What Makes a Poor Page

I have been on the internet for a long time now and probably been to hundred of thousand different web sites. I have seen them develop and change over the years, some things for the better, some for the worse. So here are my thoughts on web sites and what make good ones and bad ones.

Animation can a great tool in web site design, but at the same time can be used to create a terrible web site. Where a little animation on a content menu can enhance the design, if you have to mouse over everything to see the menu what good is it.

Flashing Text is always a bad idea.

Audio should never be automatic. If I want to listen to your favorite song I will click on it. Even if it is a musician’s site I still want the option of choosing what I listen to. Nothing will make me hit the back button faster is some unwanted audio file blasting out of my speakers over what I am currently playing.

Clutter and to much information is just as bad if not worse than not enough information. If I have to sort through a bunch of worthless crap, I will probably look elsewhere. On the subject of not enough information, you would be surprised at the number of musician pages I have been to that do not list on the site where they are from. They have all this information about the band, all the venues they are playing in, songs to download, CD’s to buy, but if I want to see them live I have no idea what state they are playing in. Remember it is the “World” Wide Web.

Formatting of a web site should be tailored for the kind of people you want to attract. For example a rock band would probably want a flashier site with more eye candy than a classical violinist who specializes in weddings, or a computer game software would want a lot more animation than a company selling business management software.

Automatic Pop-ups and banners in my opinion take away from the site. Just don’t use them, besides most people have pop-up blockers installed so they never see them anyway.

I didn’t include any examples of these poorly designed web sites, but if you want to see some just go to MySpace and check out some of the user pages there. Everything from crappy bands and metalheads that play their favorite death metal song as soon as you enter the page to flashing and dancing graphics, to pages that are so cluttered you get a headache just looking at them. Not only that but having a my space page allows absolute strangers including predators, spammers, deviates of every kind, advertisers, and yes even perspective employers and law enforcement, another access point to get information about you that you may not want them to know.

Chapter 5 Lab

Office Memo: Exchange of Business Cards using Bluetooth Devices.

It has recently been suggesting that our sales force utilize bluetooth devices for the exchange of electronic business cards with customers and contacts.  After researching this subject I have found the following pros and cons discussed below.

If our sales force is already equipped with bluetooth technology there would be no major expense, but if not then there is the expense of changing over to the bluetooth technology, and while we may be able to use electronic business in some areas of business it will not completely replace the paper business card.

Not everyone we deal with will have this technology.  Our sales force must be aware that exchanging of electronic business cards may be embraced by certain individuals while others will be opposed to it.  Therefore they need to access the situation before the exchange of information takes place.

There is still an security issue with bluetooth technology and a lot of these security holes stem from the exchange of electronic business cards.  Our sales staff must keep current security measures up to date.

In conclusion while it is felt that using bluetooth technology to exchange business card information can be an added tool for our sales force it will not replace the need for paper business cards at this point.

Chapter 5 Discussion

Chapter 5 is on LAN’s and WLAN’s

Network technology is changing rapidly. What problems do networks still need to solve?

The main challenge with any network is the combining of security with user friendliness.  Corporations, communities, and even home networks need to be as secure as possible, but the problem with security is that it takes away from user friendliness.  The trick is to balance the security with the user interface to create the most secure network but still keep the network user friendly enough to keep production from dropping off.  If users are constantly having to deal with security issues instead of spending productive time both are losers.

Do you think networks themselves will be eclipsed by some other type of technology? If so, what characteristics would it have?

Any technology is destined to be replaced by newer technology, that is how it works, but to be replaced it has to have a significant advantage over the old technology for people to accept it.  Let’s look at the example of IBM.  IBM was the personal computer giant in the late 70’s and early 80’s but do to the fact that they contracted other companies without obtaining exclusive rights to the products Microsoft and Intel sold the same products to other people who did things better and cheaper than IBM, but still IBM had the name, in fact computers were sold as IBM compatibles.  Seeing their market share of the computer industry dropping IBM decided to create a new project, the PS2 computer with a new type of proprietary buss.  This meant that whoever purchased one of these new computers not only had to replace the computer but any peripheral cards had to be replaced as well with proprietary cards.  Although the product was superior to the AT computers and introduced many features that became standard on other computers there was not enough of an advantage for customers to purchase the PS2 over the lower priced clones.

For the second example let’s look at the music industry.  In 1982 Phillips in partnership with Sony produced the first digital compact music disc.  “Visitors” by ABBA rolled off the assembly line in a plant in Hanover, Germany which “ushered in a shift from analog to to digital in the music industry” (Phillips.com).  Compact discs were a major improvement over vinyl and regardless of the added expense over records were still embraced by the music buying public making records nearly obsolete by 1990.  In this case the product was superior enough to overcome the expense for most people to update their music collections.

Most companies have quite a bit of money wrapped up in network equipment so to replace all of this at one time is going to be a huge expense, therefore what ever technology replaces networks will happen at either a gradual pace or someone will come out with a product so superior to the current technology that it will replace it.

The Internet has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years and is now part of global life. As the “network of networks,” what special technological and ethical problems do Internet users need to solve?

As mentioned above security is a growing issue with any networking technology and nowhere else is this more evident than the Internet.  Identity theft is  now listed as the number one crime.  The Federal Trade Commission reports that for the 4th year in a row identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints (Federal Trade Commission Web Site).  The second problem is spam.  I finally had to ditch my long time email address because my spam to mail content was just out of hand.  I have steadily quit using the address and the last time I downloaded my mail for this address I had 569 messages in my mailbox of which 492 were caught by my spam filter and most of the others were spam that was not caught.

The final problem is viruses and spyware which was touched on in an earlier post.

Are the technological and ethical problems any different for those who create technology for the Internet?

Not really, I don’t believe anyone wants their mailbox clogged with spam or malicious software installed on their computer.  The problem is in the lack of security in the internet but again security puts limitations on things and decreases user friendliness.

Do you think the growth of the Internet should be limited?

No, regardless of its shortcomings, and the fact that it has become more of an exchange of advertising than what it was originally designed for, any limitations on growth will stifle technology.

What is your idea of the ideal Internet access? What is necessary to make that happen?

Fast and free.  It won’t happen in a free enterprise system as long as a profit can be made.  Unless communities set up their own networks for their citizens someone will always charge for internet access.

Home networks are becoming increasingly popular. Why would anyone want a home network? What advantages do they offer to home users? What are the drawbacks?

What a stupid question.  The same reason anyone else would want a network.  So you can share files, printers, internet access, and other peripherals with all the computers in your house.  The drawback is that a lot of people do not process the technical knowledge to set up a network and since a lot of home networks are wireless there is always the security issue.

Works Cited

Philips celebrates 25th anniversary of the compact disc – Phillips Electronics Web Site- http://origin.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/press/20070816_25th_anniversary_cd.page

Federal Trade Commission – Identity Theft Survey Report – The Federal Trade Commission Web Site  – http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/09/synovatereport.pdf

Chapter 4 Lab

Data loss: software engineer booked

This crime took place in India where a software engineer was arrested for selling source code.  It seems she copied the source code of the projects she was working on and e-mailed them to other companies that in turn paid he for the code.  This case was filed under the Law of Information Technology Act.  

The elements used to in this case was an examination of the computer from which the emails were sent.  Since the employee did not use here company email but instead a personal email account the evidence was found when the computer was examined.

The verdict of this case has not been determined and the investigation is still ongoing, but the police have the names of the companies that the emails were sent to and they are questioning them, so there may be more arrests made.

My thought on this case is it again proves that regardless of how smart criminals are they are still stupid.  You would think that a programmer would know enough about computers to realize that there is a trail of all emails sent from a company computer.