Secure Email Project

http://smallbizresource.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/making_secure_e.html

Jay Campbell, owner of Joseph Campbell Realty, communicates with his clients mainly through email. Confidential and important emails containing documents and data are exchanged through email between him and his clients. Campbell was in need of a secure email sharing process, but one that didn't confuse his clients, as most of them are not computer savvy.
After further research Mr. Campbell chose Voltage Security Network, which enables his clients to open a secure email in their regular inbox, click on the envelope to open the secure message, and are quickly authorized allowing them to read and send back an encrypted email.
Secure email provides Campbell with greater credibility and peace of mind to his clients knowing that their confidential information is protected.

Week 14: Muddy Thin Clients

After watching the lectures I still couldn't pin point what an actual Thin Client was. I watched the "Thin Client Computing" lecture a handful of times. The lecture was no doubt insightful, but I still couldn't grasp it.

After further research, I finally understood what this Thin Client was really all about. And this understanding stemmed from an analogy that I mustered up. I thought of a Thin Client as a mooch! This guy just wants someone else to do the work for him. He wants to get credit for displaying some work, but doesn't want to do it!

Www.wisegeek.com defines Thin Client that fittingly supports my analogy: "a thin client can refer to either a software program or to an actual computer that relies heavily on another computer to do most of its work. A thin client is part of a network, and the client software or computer acts as an interface, while the network server computer does all the real work."

Cheating in school is also an example. For examples sake: Yolanda (the network server computer) completed her math homework. Max (the Thin Client) doesn't want to do his math homework, so he copies (relies) on Yolanda's homework. He copies it word for word and turns in his homework to his teacher (displays the work on his computer screen.)
Yolanda could earn the title of being the leader of the class (centralized/network server computer) and it turns out that the entire class starts to copy her work and turn it in (display on their computer screens.) Some students are assigned less questions than others, but when some students are required to submit more answers to questions than normal, they don't stress out because Yolanda (the network server computer) allocates whatever information/answer they need in order to submit (produce/display) the information.

Here is a YouTube video titled "Thin Client 101" that is helpful for understanding Thin Clients.

Week 13: Clear Phishing

For anyone who is familiar with information theft, the title of this post doesn't seem odd. But for those who are not, they might assume that I either do not know how to correctly spell the word "fishing," or am just trying too hard to be fancy.

Phishing is, according to our textbook, "a scam in which a perpetrator sends an official looking e-mail message that attempts to obtain your personal and financial information."

The word "phishing" actually does relate to the sport "fishing" in simplistic terms. According to www.webopedia.com, "phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on "fishing," the big idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting."

Let's pretend that your bank of choice is Wachovia, and you are a fan of online banking. You've provided Wachovia with your personal account numbers, passwords, as well as other confidential information. Through online banking, you check/monitor your balances and transfer money from one account to another quite often.
You feel pretty safe with Wachovia and believe that your private information is secure. Then one day, you receive an email from a source that you believe to be Wachovia. You open the e-mail and it appears as though Wachovia is requesting you to verify your account numbers, pin numbers, and online passwords. The email looks credible, and you don't question it because you have been banking with Wachovia for some time now...so why wouldn't you provide them with the information that they need?
You click on the link provided/send the information requested. And little do you know, you are sending it to someone who is going to now perform those online banking functions that you do, but...for themselves. It's information theft that acts as a legitimate source/organization/company...but really has nothing to do with it.


Here is a "Phishing Scam" video that I found on YouTube after I wrote this blog! It complements my example of phishing and relates it to banks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqRZGhiHGxg&feature=fvw

Week 12: Clear Systems Analyst

In order to understand what a systems analyst is, you must first be familiar with and understand information systems, because as the textbook states: "a systems analyst is responsible for designing and developing an information system."

Information systems are "collection of hardware, software, data, people and processes that work together to produce quality information." And in order to build an information system, a set of activities known as the system development cycle is necessary. These activities are grouped into five cyclical phases:

1. Planning
2. Analysis
3. Design
4. Implementation
5. Operation, Support, and Security

Think of a systems analyst like a middleman. There is a business goal that an organization needs to accomplish (such as a software program that allows employees to access and update certain types of records pertaining to their company.) The systems analyst meets with the organization's managers and users to define specific goals of the system, and then design this system to meet the goals.

Along with management and users, the systems analyst meets with IT professionals, vendors, sometimes other systems analysts, but most importantly the steering committee (decision-making body of an organization.) In order for the variety of individuals and groups that the systems analyst meets with during the system development cycle, the systems analyst must possess strong communication, problem-solving, analytical and logical skills. They must be driven leaders who are detail oriented that have proficient organizational skills to enable them to successfully find solutions to problems/cumbersome tasks. They must think "out of the box," while grasping the big picture.

According to The Princeton Review, some examples of questions that a systems analyst must solve during the system development cycle are:

• What are the business requirements?
• Who will comprise the user community?
  
• How large is the application going to be?
• Will it be internal or external?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed because there a million different people pulling you in all different directions, all of which are asking you to do something for them? You start to panic and think, "Ahhh I cannot please and make everyone happy at the same time!" Well, that is a responsibility of a systems analyst. It's possible. As with most things...it takes dedication and hard work.

Although we were given a peek into the life of a systems analyst through the lecture segment interview with Christine Schoaff, here is a YouTube link that provides you with "A Day in the Life of a Computer Systems Analyst."

Database Project

Before reading the instructions for the Database project, I had never heard of Microsoft Access. I am familiar with Word, Excel (obviously) and the software suite Microsoft Office...but not Access.

Once I opened Access I browsed around on my own to get somewhat familiar before I embarked on the project. I watched the first lecture, completed the first portion of the project (creating the table), and everything was fine. I felt like I knew what I was doing. I watched the second lecture (importing tables) and thought "this might be a little tricky, but I'll manage." But once I attempted to complete the importing tables section of the project, it took me HOURS to figure it out. Trial and error over and over and over again. I was furious. I read the discussion board posts, browsed the Web, searched every resource I could. I was so livid to the point where I didn't want to do it. That was until I came across a discussion board post that was directly related to my problem. After that obstacle, everything else was extremely smooth. It was such an accomplishing feeling when I finished the project.

There is not just one key thing that this project taught me. This project taught me EVERYTHING that was entailed in the project. It was helpful for the lectures to compare certain aspects of Access to Excel, that definitely enabled me to grasp concepts easier...

If I could enhance the functionality of this project I would have allocated specific information to certain tables. I would have enabled relationships among tables so that if I created a table of individual members there was a link that provided access to those individual members that joined a certain date, or lived in a specific city/zip code.

This project opened my eyes to the many options that I would have been able to organize a business that I owned. It enables one to strategically organize and categorize specifics of a business that is necessary to continue to grow and profit from a business.

Week 11: Muddy Database Management Systems

Before embarking on this week's lectures and readings, I am going to be completely honest...I did not even know that Microsoft Access even existed. I was familiar with the WORD "database", but I did not actually know what it meant. Whenever I thought of the word "database" the only thing that came to mind was "collection of information." That is extremely general. A "collection of information" is applicable to Microsoft Word, Excel, the Internet, etc.

Before I read the chapter/watched the lectures I reviewed the instructions for the Database project. It seriously made me feel like I was born yesterday. And I thought my mom was computer illiterate...

I would watch a lecture segment and my reaction afterward would be "whaaaat??!" Thank goodness for the Internet because I for surely had many questions about what was presented this week.

I am by no means saying that the lectures were uninformative...they were extremely helpful. But I am the type of individual that needs further explanation and further examples in order to completely grasp a concept that is new to me.

After my endeavors of researching with a Database Management System (DBMS) really is, I learned the following:

It aids with the:

• storage
• manipulation
• reporting
• management
• control

OF DATA!

That still isn't reasonable for me to process what it really is. For me to completely understand what DBMS truly entails I had to submerge myself in to a situation that deals with DBMS.

Hypothetical situation-

I am the owner of a clothing boutique. I have 50 employees and over 5,000 current customers.
I want to keep track of what each customer purchases, how much they spend, where they live, if they are regular customers, and their contact information in order to market correctly.

This is where DBMS comes into play. It's a tool that enables me to efficiently organize and categorize related information. It provides me with a simplified and easy-to-view form of all the data. The primary key function allows me to attribute a certain ID to each shopper, and through accessing each ID number I am able to see all of the information in my database that pertains to that particular shopper.

This is a YouTube video that delves into the specifics of database management systems. It is very informative. Enjoy!

Week 10: Clear VoIP

I think that it is amazing how computers are capable of interpreting our voices, converting our speech into terms that computers can understand and transmitting the information to receiving computers.

This process is known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or most commonly referred to as VoIP. Originally designed for data networking, the success of Internet Protocol (IP) has developed an adaption to voice networking.

It is the transmission of voice traffic over IP-based networks aka calls that can be placed across the Internet. One may use VoIP to call other VoIP users or PSTN gateways (Public Switched Telephone Network.) VoIP to VoIP calls are free and require VoIP hardware and/or software at both ends. VoIP to PSTN gateways are free-based but there are costs involved depending on what services/package one desires. These calls are capable through certain services such as Vonage, SkypeOut/SkypeIn.

There are three different methods to a VoIP network:

• VoIP telephone
• Standard telephone with VoIP adapter
• Computer with with attached microphone

The process of placing a VoIP call using a computer attached microphone would takes place as follows:
1. You speak into the microphone attached to the computer
2. Your voice is converted to compressed digital data stream
3. The data is transmitted across the IP network
4. The data is received to whoever you are trying to communicate with, converted to sound and then sent to the audio output device

Here is quite an interesting VoIP tutorial that teaches you what VoIP is, why to use VoIP and how to use VoIP.