Chapter #7 Blog Post

Chapter #7

Understanding E-Business

This has to be my favorite chapter of the book. Of everything i have taken from this class I think my learning of social media, marketing, and e-business might be the most valued.

First step in understanding how your E-business model should work is knowing your consumer and business relation. Some of the most popular are shown below

Once this has been determined you can shape your model and decide where you need to go to cater to your needs and grow.  Some questions to ask yourself...
Do I want to sell susbscriptions?
Is social networking important to us?
Will we be able to obtain ad revenue?
Questions like this will help identify the type of business you have and how you will market it.

Looking forward E-Business is just going to get larger and is an opportunity many have fallen victim to already by not staying current with. Borders is about to shut don and this is an example of a brick and mortar company simply not adjusting to the changes that were needed in todays marketplace.

Chapter #6 Blog Post

Chapter #6

This is a chapter in the book I NEEDED to read terribly. Although I might understand how to use some of the great resources of the internet I should know how and what is happening to make that available to me.  This chapter had a plethora of information on networks, cables, routers, transmissions, switches, gateways and much more. Some of it is still over my head the understanding I have gained is world beyond what i knew before the chapter. I didn't even know there were different types of networks! such as LAN for say a building, MAN for many buildings sharing in an area like a school, and WAN that could connect people on a network all over the world.

Virtual meetings and web conferencing are something I am greatly interested in and plan to push at my place of employment.  This can step up company efficiency and take strain off the would be traveling employee. 

Network security is another thing I just did not have a clue about but now have a vague understanding of what is going on.  Moving forward in business with our internet reliance network security is only going to become more and more important.

Chapter #5 Blog Post

Chapter #5

Portals- Personal portals (horizontal portals) are portals set up to be able to find and provide any information you are looking for. Even to be customized by the individual to be more specific to their interests. Industry portals (Vertical portals) are a more specific search portal finding you specific information on one interest or subject. 

News Sites- Something that I should use more of! These news portals will keep you up to the minute on current events, let you customize them to your needs for things like weather and stocks, and they encourage interaction on the site. 

A few other notables are hobbyist sites, online dictionaries, information sites, finance, education, and shopping all available at your fingertips.

Blog Update!

Why hello there blog it has been too long! since my last update. Just thought I would comment a little on the new Google+ I have been using.  As someone who never used Facebook(yes that's right) I find this a really neat way for me to stay in touch with many friends. I have been communicating with some people of the past and staying in touch with those around me. I also really like sharing some cool tunes!

Chapter #4 Blog Post

We start out this Chapter with some great information as to what exactly is going on when you send and receive an e-mail.  First we learn about the four steps:

Step 1 - Sender creates a message
Step 2 - SMTP server determines route for message
Step 3 - Internet routers direct message
Step 4 - Recipient receives message 

The different types of servers was something new to me(POP, IMAP, and HTTP).  Learning about the differences such as how POP will download the messages but only to a single machine was informative and new to me.  I guess I never put two and two together about how I used to log onto work e-mail without connection to the internet to view already downloaded messages(IMAP). 

I took some time to setup my Windows E-Mail and sync it with my G-Mail account as shown below.

 

Once this was finished I went about soaking in the vast knowledge of e-mail uses and learned a few new tricks myself. One thing that I had known about but never used before was the signature file.  Later in the chapter we also explore a few more new to me ways of gathering information such as the Google Newsgroups. Overall I found that the chapter had some great e-mail information as well as some good ways to organize and access news and social networking sites.

Google Docs is Fun!

So this one has taken me some getting used to but after some time messing around in Google Docs I can really see the added value this brings to the table.  Another new to me technology has been a success and I plan to explore it more and more. Here are a few quick docs I made using Google docs.

Document

Presentation

Now onto using the spreadsheet and forms.  To show how quick and easy it is I started a spreadsheet and started a form. Here is a screenshot using Jing to show them working together

Next up I added Viki's Blog to my Google Reader so I can follow it and be notified of updates.

Lastly I updated my Symbaloo account to reflect my new found interest in Google Docs!

Overall I am very impressed and look forward to integrating Google Docs into my every day needs.

Audioboo Review

Although I do not have a use for this currently this is a great and easy to use technology for recording your voice and sharing it with others.  Especially for such things as narrating a presentation or adding it to another video.
In just a few short minutes I was up and recording. I am really impressed with how user friendly it was.