Collaboration systems are tools that support the works of teams. They are IT based and they do this by sharing the flow of such information. Businesses can solve a number of tasks they may have with collaboration. Some of these may include but are not limited to: telecommuting, online meetings, deploying applications, and remote project and sales management.
A popular term and one of the most dominant collaboration applications, is eamil. More specifically, instant messaging allows people to communicate in “real time”. Private chat rooms are created in real time over the internet to allow communication between two people. (Baltzan,Phillips,p. 384)
In the CNN.com article titled “Facebook unveils instant messaging feature”, it describes a brand new instant messaging service called Facebook chat. Friends on Facebook will actually be able to communicate with each other in real time, back and forth instantly. This differs from the normal built in email messaging Facebook offers. When users click online friends, they will see who is available to chat and they will have the option to move their chat book and clear their history.
One interesting idea the article mentions is the idea that Facechat could possibly be serious competition for AOL’s instant messaging client AIM. They are currently the number one instant messaging service in the United States. This is because Facebook is becoming so popular, even passing up Myspace, which is something no one saw coming!
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/08/facebook.chat/index.html
This article pertains to the drop in MySpace web traffic. According to Eliot Van Buskirk of wire.com MySpace’s parent company stands to lose approximately 100 million because it can meet its web traffic (advertizing) quota with Google. This is bad new foe News Corp because it covered its 580 dollar acquisition of MySpace; on the up side News Corp generates 85 percent of its revenue from movie studio and cable channels. MySpace has changed its focus from a site “that bring friends together” to one that specializes in entertainment. According to Chase Carey, “We’re not trying to beat Facebook. We’re not trying to beat Twitter and many aspects of the business are changing, including when movies can debut on platforms other than theaters, the value of syndicated reruns, and the growth of video-on-demand.” (www.wired.com).
This is note worthy and correlate to chapter 12 because it says that business use social networks for passive employment searches, boomerang searches, and marketing networks. At stated above Myspace plans on focusing on entertainment and has become a useful tool in adverting and marketing music, movies, and videos.
By Eliot Van Buskirk
November 5, 2009
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/myspace-traffic-drop-costs-news-corp-about-100-million/
Social Entrepreneurship: Going Green
I tired to find a decent article which talks about globalization but an article about green energy found me first. This article was published few months ago and talks about billionaire T. Boone Pickens’s plan of building the world’s largest wind farm.
Pickens is a billionaire who earned his treasure from the oil industry and trading. He was named the 117th richest person in US with a net worth of about $3 billion in 2007.
Pickens’s plan of building the 667 wind turbines named the Pampa Wind Project was put on hold due to tranmission issue and capital market issue. Pickens said that he will not forfeit the project and claim that he will definitely find a place to place his 667 wind turbines.
The wind farm project proposed to supply 4000 megawatts of electric energy and should supply electric energy for 1.3 million homes. The project will cost $12 billion and is now postponed to be complete by 2014.
Pickens had been advertising his wind farm plan by TV commercials and lobbying even since last summer. Unfortunately the credit market had been holding Pickens back from completing his plan. Pickens tried to get into energy supplying industry as oil price had been unstable recently and forecast to be unstable in near future.
United State became the world leading provider of wind energy in 2008. Wind farm is visioned to be the leading electric energy supplier in the future for US.
Wind farm is in many way more environmental friendly than many electric energy generator. Wind farm uses renewable energy, wind, to generate electric power and propose near no treat to the environment. With the existent of wind farm, more environmental unfriendly power generator can be replaced.
Oil boron’s wind farm project hits doldrums
CNN Technology, July 8, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/08/pickens.wind.farm/index.html
This article pertains to the Goggle’s open source Android operating system (for mobile phones) that was released last year. Priya Ganapati of Wired.com says that while the system had a slow start it has become increasingly popular but has run into a few problems. Mainly the problem is that there are three version of the operating system on the market (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0). This became a problem because application developer has had to make much correction to there program in order for them to run successfully on all three systems. That is while an application will run perfectly on one OS system it will not function properly on anther. Another problem is that certain application will not operate on certain phone that it is the phones do not have the proper hardware to launch these applications. “Ultimately, developers will have to start making tough decisions on who they want to target and versions of the operating system they want to support” ,says Gilligan (www.cnn.com).
I found this to correlate to chapter 11 because chapter 11 discusses the importance of project planning and development. This article shows a perfect example of a poorly planned project because time, scope, and Cost (triple constrain) where not balance effectively. Both cell phone manufactures and OS developers need to coordinate their activities to produce a quality product. The iPhone is a perfect example of such coordination.
Article By: Priya Ganapati
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/android.wired/index.html?iref=allsear
November 17, 2009 5:06 p.m. EST
This article is a review of the features offer by in Genesys Meeting Center software. It is inexpensive web conferencing software that cost approximately 33 cents per minute per user. This provides a nice alternative to purchasing an allotted time of service. Once you create an account you are give a “credit Card” of sort with your information and PIN number. To access the service you simple go to www.genesys.com and enter your PIN number (only the moderator needs to enter a PIN number). The Moderator has full control of the session and software allows display live video and shows the transitions and integrated audio and video on our test PowerPoint slide show. The moderator can also set up private chat sessions and decide when other can communicate.
this correlates to the text because the text defines groupware as software that supports team interaction and dynamics including calendaring, scheduling and videoconferencing. The text also say that that they are used to coordinate to solve problems, compete or negotiate. I believe this software is becoming increasingly valuable because it allow people to communicate from vast distances. This semester I used collaboration software in my MGT software it felt somewhat like an instant messenger but also had the capability of recording session. I however would have preferred web-conferencing software that allowed use to actually see each other. I felt the lack of interaction non-verbal communication hinder our work and would have been easier with a visual experience.
Leon Erlanger
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1418513,00.asp
January 20, 2004
Why are there no Mac Viruses
In this article Philip Elmer-Dewitt discusses the reason for the lack of Mac OS X viruses. He argues that there aren’t any viruses capable of infecting the Mac OS X system. He defined a virus as a program that infects a computer and has the ability to spread to other computers. He argued that spyware and Trojan horses, and spam are not considered viruses. He state that many people argue that the reason Mac OS X has a lack a virus is the lack of consumers. He argue that the real reason lack of viruses is hackers’ lack of interest, due to low consumer base, to some extent, the UNIX base file system and kernel is more difficult to infect, and viruses are going out of style.
He closes by stating that apple my just be lucky, or that it could infect offer better protection for its customers and that Windows 7 may offer similar protection. I like to believe the latter from, what I have heard is that since Mac builds programs specific to one type of computer they are better able to work out all the litter bug that may hinder the systems capabilities, whereas Microsoft develops programs for a wide array of computers e.g. Toshiba, Dell, HP, etc. This correlates to Chapter One in the sense that a company must decide what type of operating system to use the need to weight out what they want to accomplish and other issues such a security within that system. The Company I work (BestBuy) uses Microsoft I believe it’s because it offers a greater compatibility with external aspects of the company.
Posted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt September 2, 2009 10:53 AM
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/02/why-are-there-no-mac-viruses/
“Company Offers College textbooks for free”
This particular article informs the public of the website flatworld.com, a website where like the title suggests allows students to obtain their college text books for free. There are a few more details than that of course the website also offers printed versions of the texts book for up to sixty dollars and offers PDF versions of the text for $20 but students always have the option to read the books on a web browser for free. Another interesting fact is that they offer the books by chapter. According to John C. Abell Flatworld.com started by being patronized by 1,000 students at 30 colleges and now more than 40,000 students at 400 colleges use this website.
“Eric Frank cofounder told WIRED (Abell) that the key buy in has been from the teachers who make the assignments and this can attributed to the economy” (cnn.com, 1). Frank believes it will come down to price especially after new formats are developed for the Sony’s e-book reader and Amazon’s kindle. The Company still aspect the PDF copy to be the package of choice e-book and similar devises are capable of reading PDF formats.
I found this to correlate with Chapter three because it offers a new option for students to use the internet and is a perfect example of how the internet has evolved to facilitate the needs of different individuals.
John C. Abell Sept. 8, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/21/free.college.textbooks/index.html
“Cybercrime: a secret underground economy”
This article denounces the stereotype of geeks creating and sending out viruses and maintains that it is a growing industry. Cyber criminals steal one’s personal information such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers by way of malware, spyware viruses, Trojan horses etc. And then sell that information online to a third party. David Goldman describes this as a “multi-billion dollar business” and goes on to that if every stolen credit card was wiped clean last year that would have totaled some 8 billion dollars. One must ask so what is the government doing to prevent these crimes? Well the FBI is currently going undercover in IRC (internet relay chat rooms) and posing as cyber criminal. Once a criminal is caught they offered deals in order to get them to help turn over more cyber criminals although Goldman cites Albert Gonzalez in saying that doesn’t always work one can always look at the TJ Max situation. A situation where a cyber criminal was working for the FBI in order to get vital information that helped his friends evade detection (cnn.com, 1). According to eh article Rowan Trollope the senior vice president of product development at Symantec the current anti-virus technology is not enough one must perform personal step to educate oneself in order to say safe from cyber criminals. This directly correlates with this week’s text because it involves the technological aspect of protecting vital information but also states that one must also encompass an educational aspect to the technology in order to have information lost due to human error. In a discussion with one of my co-worker I discovered that Norton and McAfee antivirus systems were not that great because they are the most popular antivirus programs used and thus make it more attractive for hackers to get breach. My co-worker a computer technician recommended AVG and various other antivirus programs as alternative.
David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/16/technology/cybercrime/index.htm?postversion=2009091613
On Tuesday September 1, 2009 Gmail, the email service provided the Google search engine, experience a widespread outage. Ben Treynor, a Google vise president said, “it was a big deal and that Google is working identifying and correcting the errors that lead to the outage.” The immediate cause for the outage was that a few servers were taken offline for routine maintenance and while they were offline Google experienced experience an unexpected surge in internet traffic.
Eric Kuhn goes on to mention that at one time users would consider that the problem was stemming from their own internet connection but with social network such as Twitter that old ideology went out the door. People knew exactly why they weren’t getting any serve. According to Kuhn “Gmail problems were a top trend topic on Twitter” (cnn.com, 1)
This article directly correlates with this week’s chapter, chapter five, because two of the main topics in chapter five were backup and recovery. An organization needs to plan how often to backup information and those they also need to plan when and how minimize down time and improve recovery time. One particular method was fault tolerance in which a system has a component embedded in the system that takes over the main system in the event of an outage. Another method is failovers in which a separate duplicate system takes over while the main system is down. According to Treynor, “Google plans to increase router capacity well beyond peak demand to provide headroom” (cnn.com, 1) with 36 million users in the US alone Google should have planned better maintenance schedules.
By: Eric Kuhn
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/01/gmail.outage/index.html
By John D. Sutter October 15, 2009 E:\Disney debuts do-it-yourself thrill ride – CNN_com.mht
This article highlight the Motorola Droid, a new phone offered exclusively By Verizon wireless. It was designed for people seeking an alternative to the iPhone and shows that while the iPhone has standard it is not immune to threat or rather “not untouchable” as stated by Straton (www.cnn.com). The Droid offers many similar features and runs on the Android OS. The Droid offers voice activated search feature for music photos and contacts, Google maps turn by turn GPS directions, it also offers a 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. It has a Webkit HTML 5 browser, and it’s powered by a 550MHz processor and a removable lithium ion battery offering 6.4 hours talk time and up to 11 days of standby time.
This correlates with Chapter seven, Networks, Telecommunication, and mobile Technology, because it describes yet another gadget in the assistance of mobile technology. The Droid would be classified as a Smartphone because it offers both PDA and phone function. It also shows how we are integrating more and more mobile technology in that it also offers a GPS system, WI-FI and Bluetooth. I am quite excited about this phone because it provides a powerful tool as great service. While researching and reading some blogs comparing the droid I came to the conclusion that the Droid was more Business oriented, while the iPhone was more multi-media orientated.
By Marguerite Reardon
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/29/cnet.verizon.motorola.droid/index.html?iref=allsearch
The articles is about IBM has improved the Informix Dynamic Server. According to Kevin Brown, IBM’s Lead Architect for Informix Database, “the new tools allow [customers] to transform their data into Star Schema for efficient warehouse workloads, With this offering, we are providing the necessary tools to make their jobs that much easier” (www.eweek.com). Prior to this enhancement users would need to create manuscript and trigger to create schemas, schematic or preliminary plan. According to Brian Prince the new feature provides a visual representation of the user’s current database design and can be used to transform data into a star schema without writing a single line of code. According to brown this converts weeks of effort into just a few hours of work. Informix Dynamic Server is typically used for OLTP environment (online transaction processing) and DB2 for a database warehouse the new feature consolidates both tasks into one system. This was done in efforts to increase customer satisfaction rather that provide an edge on IBM competitors.
This correlates with chapter 6 because as noted the new feature increase productivity or rather simplifies it. The text explains that databases were implemented in order to access relevant data quickly and efficiently an attribute that today’s developer continues to improve as seen by this article.
By: Brian Prince
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Database/IBM-Adds-Informix-Data-Warhouse-Feature-to-Bolster-Database-Software/
This article described discussed and compared new technology that was offer in a few vehicles (the VW Touran, the Toyota Prius Spirit, and the Lexus LS460 to be specific). This technology is called the intelligent parking assistant, and it does what it implies (Parks your vehicle). This feature was put to the blind fold test and exerted varied results in usability and performance. The VW Touran was the easiest to use and passed the blind fold test it allowed the driver to pick a parking spot on the street and took control of the steering wheel. The driver however, still had control of the power exerted (gas pedal) and if it reached a certain speed it would automatically shut off this feature. The Lexus and the Toyota differed from the VW in that the Lexus and Toyota use on screen control to plot out the vehicles path and the VW does that on its own. Also all systems had a shut off that was engaged if the driver began to accelerate to fast. Nicholas Rufford and Jason Dawe concluded that these systems where good but still required some improvements and that “the system still couldn’t beat a competent driver” (www.timesonline.co.uk).
This article correlates with chapter two because it involves the use of artificial intelligent. The Text describes four types of artificial intelligent: Expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithm, and intelligent agents. I believe this is an intelligent agent system because it performs a certain task, I think also exhibits traits of a genetic algorithm AI system in that it optimizes a repeated tasks at least in the VW system. I wonder if both system of AI where used and if anymore systems will be integrated to form other tasks.
Nicholas Rufford and Jason Dawe
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/features/article2068943.ece
The article “Beware, Humans. The Era of Automation Software has begun” published in the New York Times, talked about the use of software systems in business. The article mainly focused on Hp and the computer software they use to help strengthen their business. the article made the point that humans make errors but not technology. The article also said that in the near future technology will automate many tasks that were once accomplished by humans. Well the article aims towards the idea that data systems are more efficient and cheaper then hiring new employees, it also points out that humans ere necessary. The art of running an efficient company is to find that balance of technology systems and employee head counts. Using the software at HP has cut costs bringing HP to 13.8 percent in operating margins. This article relates to the book because it brings up the argument of Operational management and how it can benefit a company. It also relates to the book because it shows how information systems relates to business.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/beware-humans-the-era-of-automation-software-has-begun/?scp=6&sq=operations%20management&st=cse
A new technology that is embarrassing the use of Global Positioning Systems is the GTX Corp who has invented a tracking device used in shoes. This technology is aimed at Alzheimer’s patients, as a way of finding them if they get lost. For a fee of $20 a month a subscriber to the tracking service can ask to be alerted when the tracker leaves a certain area. This technology is still in the beginning stages and still being tested. Aetrex is the shoe company that is partnering with the GPS Company. The companies expecting to launch their product by the end of the year (2010). This technology is being debated weather or not it is beneficial or detrimental to users. Many people say that having a tracking devise in a shoe would take away the rights of individuals or patients. The article GPS Shoes to track Alzheimer’s patients on CNN.com is on the side of beneficial if the user is aware of the technology and approves of its use. The cost of these shoes will run about $200 to $300. This price is worth the security that it gives to the loved ones of Alzheimer’s patients, who are said to get lost at least once with this disease. This technology has been used before in wristbands and anklets, but the designs were bulky and cumbersome. The shoes will be a great way to solve this problem. This chip technology is said to bring in an estimated total of 5 billion dollars. This is just the start to many more inventions with this technology.
he Article in the New York Times, “ A Page From an Old Playbook” talked about the efforts that have been made at Hewlett-Packard. Recently Mark V. Hurd took over at the company and realized that the technology being used was far from the standards the computer giant should be known for. Mr. Hurd had designed and took over the data industry earlier in his career when he invented a program that established data Warehousing. The book talks about Data Warehousing as a logical collection of information that is gathered from many different operational databases; that support business analysis activities and decision-making tasks. The article quotes Randy Mott, Hewlett-Packard’s chief information officer as saying: “Mark made the assessment that he did not have the information he needed to run the company the way he needed to run it. So the assessment was that, as a company, we were going to have the technology needed to fix that”. Mr. Hurd knew that this program would change how Hewlett-Packard operated its business. Mr. Hurd decided that the company could engineer their own program and use their company as the test to make sure the program worked. The Program was named NeoView, and turned out to be a very successful tool for Hewlett-Packard. Hewlett-Packard decided that with their success they could market this tool to their customers. This put Hurd at battle with his old company. The article does mention the technology to be expensive. The article also points out that Hewlett-Packard believes that in this economy selling such a pricey system isn’t a huge problem. The company’s stance on the economic problem they face is that business need their technology of data to improve business now more then ever.
New York Times- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/technology/29hewlett.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=data%20warehouse&st=Search
The article, “Should You Worry About Data Rot?” was an interesting article. The article addressed a central issue when it comes to information technology; how do you preserve it? The article was based off of a Sunday morning TV show. The article went in to a brief history of how data storage has changed over the years. Important facts such as the average computer lasts around 3-4 years before it becomes obsolete were key to the point that storage is important. Other facts that drove the point across that storage is something we need to think about is the life span of applications. The real-time player of yesterday isn’t the same as the new real-time player 15 (figuratively speaking). Meaning old videos that you took a couple years ago won’t be converted and the data will be lost. Other examples are videos and cassette tapes. Most people are using technology to transfer old home videos to dvd and they think that there data is now safe. But one day people will ask, what was a DVD? This reality is a scary thought. Memories are what life is about. Family photos are essential to that memory. So when we think that these memories could disappear it is breath stopping. Ideas that were brought up were using websites to back up photos. This came with a warning saying that these sites can go under. The other note was to print out the information. Photos and documents are known to last at least 100 years. The article summed up with saying that there is no storage available on the market that is known to last through the times. The best thing to do is to keep up with technology. This related to the chapter in talking about data backup. This isn’t on a big scale like the book talked about but this does address a personal need.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/should-you-worry-about-data-rot/?scp=1&sq=bake%20up%20and%20recovery&st=Search
This article hits at two main points from Chapter 4. One point is that companies need to be aware of security and constantly working to stay one step ahead of hackers. The second point it brings up is the use of White-Hat Hackers. Theses are hackers who are usually paid by the company to try and break a computer code to gain access. Apple made a clear point at stating there case and made a potential negative situation work as a marketing tool.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/technology/23iphone.html?_r=1&scp=10&sq=security%20&st=Search
The article I read was from Prisonplanet.com and the article was titled Video adds in Magazines. The article talked about the new technology being introduced to the marketing industry. This technology is a mini display screen, the size of a wafer, that is inserted in a magazine add. The technology has speakers and visual effects. This technology is similar to the singing birthday cards. A similar article posted on MaximumPC.com made the following information known, “The ads will appear on a slender TFT LCD screen, all of 2.7 mm thick, with a 320×240 resolution. Video-in-print, which will be embedded into the magazine, can hold up to 40 minutes of video content. It runs on batteries that can be charged via a USB cable.”
The buzz about this new technology is surfacing because of its up coming use in Entertainment Weekly. The ads will run in the September issue and are purchased by CBS and Pepsi. The ads are to promote the new fall line up. This technology is more expensive. The average cost is high ranging in the seven figures. This is compared to a regular print add that would only cost nine cents per page. This relates to the chapter because the book talks about new technologies over taking old ways. This technology is a way for the print companies to try to compete in a digital world. This technology is similar to the type of ads viewed in Harry Potter. This innovation leaves room for growth. There has even been talks about using technology similar to the Amazon Kendal. The news industry is try to diversify, so that they don’t become another form of history.
Artificial Intelligence is a fast growing form of Information Systems. This form of Information systems is highly beneficial to the business world. A recent use of Artificial Intelligence is seen in Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Urban Challenge. This challenge was highlighted on MSNBC’s technology section in an article titled “Driverless SUV wins $2 million Pentagon race” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21625291/ ).This was a competition that encouraged teams to build a smart vehicle that could navigate itself through a 60-mile course in the desert area of Victorville, California. The racers were not only judged on speed but also safety checkpoints. The winner of this challenge was a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, which had been extremely modified. The vehicle was created and guided by a team from Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors. The team won the challenge and took away a prize of two million dollars. This type of Artificial Intelligence can be classified as an Intelligent Agent. The Computer systems that are used are aimed at using knowledge for a specific task. In this case the task was driving through rough terrains and not breaking down. This competition was a way for DARPA to get teams to research for them, without having to pay wages. This technology is hoped to be use for military vehicles. By using this type of technology soldiers wont have to risk their lives by traveling in to extremely dangerous situations. This technology also allows for judgments that soldiers usually don’t have time to make, to be executed. Tony Tether, director of DARPA was quoted in the article for stating, “I watched these things driving, and I forgot after a while that there was nobody in there.” Artificial Intelligence opens the doors to making business more efficient.
