Week 7 Midterm and Chapter 4

    This week I studied for the midterm. Then I took the midterm on Tuesday with a 3X5 index "cheat sheet." Then I read chapter 4 on Wednesday and took the online quiz, and got a 100. On Thursday in class we went over the chapter which was basically over ethics. Finally today I am writing my blog for the week.
    This week I learned about ethics with information systems. We learned about how to go about deciding if an action is ethical for yourself, everyone else, and the company. We learned about liability and responsibility as well. Other than that, there wasn't a whole lot of terms or concepts that I learned about. That is pretty much it for this blog. I know it is kind of short but that's how the week went in CIST 3100. Hope you enjoyed.

Chapter 7

    My stance on net neutrality is that it a right for everyone. It's true that some things the internet is being used for aren't necessary. It is the fact that it can be used for anything that makes the internet so profitable. If there is one thing that I have learned in this class, it is that advertisements on "non-necessary" sites pay for a great deal of business' expenses. If there were restrictions set on the priority of importance, anyone who wants to use the internet for recreational uses, most likely the primary "clickers" of those ads will have slower access. This could lead to them getting upset and using the internet less often and less clicks on those advertisements leading to less profits for companies utilizing that. In that sense, it is a lose-lose situation for the general public and businesses. Priority regulations would basically turn the internet into mostly a business tool taking away one of the biggest forms of entertainment for millions of people. This is why I believe that net neutrality should stay intact because if it does not, we will be moving backwards in terms of the internet.
    This week I skimmed the chapter (read paragraphs with bold print words) and then we took a paper quiz on Tuesday. We then listened to the TA (I can't remember his name) talk about all the different networking terms from the chapter. After that we broke up into groups and each talked about a topic of networking  explaining what it was, what the advantages are, and what some possible challenges would be. On Thursday we listened to the lecture while using clickers to answer questions. I really liked how that went and I would like to do that again since I'm not much of an outgoing person in the classroom. Technically I didn't accomplish this task, but Justin sent in the letter from Google getting formal permission from our company to do the group project. Finally, today I am typing out my journal for week 6.
    This week was a wealth of knowledge for me. I have always wanted to know what a lot of these networking terms we have discussed meant, but didn't want to take the time to individually look up every one of them. Just some of the terms that I learned are TCP/IP which stands for Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol, the set of rules used to define the way data moves from one place to another, TCP being the entire length and IP being the movement between nodes.Another important term I got a better understanding of was IP addresses. IP addresses are used to specify a device to which information or data is sent to. An IP address consists of four strings of numbers ranging from 0-255. We as a world community have actually run out of IP addresses and must now implement IPv6 which adds more strings and numbers to make over a quadrillion addresses. That is where I will wrap this blog up. There are many other terms that I have learned this week but those two were the most interesting to me and was something I have wanted to know for a while.

Chapter 6

    The IRS is gaining ground on finding tax fraud more efficiently than previous years. After looking at the 1040 individual tax return there are numerous checks to help catch and prevent loop holes in the system that are causing the government revenue. The first thing I noticed was the two options for married couples filing together or separately. This makes the tax payer to put down the social security number, most likely the primary key in a query, of their spouse filing separately so that they may not both claim their children as dependents. Second, they chose to once again include the social security number of every person being claimed as a dependent. They once again can use this to verify that they are actually supposed to be claimed to the tax payer. Honestly anything after that starts to get too complicated for me to understand what they are trying to find out.
    The IRS had a few issues that they had to deal with when it came to the system for tax collecting, analyzing, and auditing. A management issue that could have been addressed was creating a flexible queries to make finding information in the database easier for employees and expediting the process of auditing. An organizational issue that they needed to deal with was to form policies to help managers and other workers better interpret whether the tax payer in question made a mistake or was trying to commit fraud. The implementation of these policies didn't necesarryily reduce the number of audits significantly, but it did reduce the amount of unnecessary audits on good people who just made a mistake. A technological issue that they obviously faced was the upgrade from the old database to the new database warehouse. They had to replace their old information storage, tapes, and replace them with much more effecient and less space consuming "network-attached storage applicances." They had to find the personnel to monitor the status of the servers as well as a location to keep the servers.
    This week I read chapter 6 and the case study on the terrorist watch list. We took a clicker quiz on thursday and discussed the case study. I also collaborated with my group on our project and on the business proposal that is due tomorrow. Finally, I read the case study on the IRS and am now completing the blog for this week.
    This week we learned about databases. We learned that databases make it easy for a business to keep track of alot of information, attributes, for a particular person/item, record, along with numerous other people, a field. We learned about the up-keep for these databases such as data cleansing, checking and fixing data redundancy; normalization, creating small tables that are more useful and less confusing that every piece of information about a subject; and data quality audit, which is a check to make sure that the information entered into the database is complete and correct. We learned about data mining which is finding out information that was not really being looked for. An example we learned about was the realationship between beer and diapers. As is turns out as sales for diapers went up, so did sales for beer. This is information that could be helpful and utilized for profit or efficiency.That pretty much wraps up this weeks chapter. Thanks for reading!

Week Four Chapter 5

    Selecting computer hardware and software is an important management decision because the IT department of any modern company is the foundation to it just like the now famous analogy of a cement foundation to a house. The IT department is the basis for all of the business' information systems (IS). They are the back end processes that keep companies as efficient and low cost as they are today. The company wants to make sure they select the hardware and software that is the best combination of lowest cost and most efficient/convenient. 

    Things to think think about when it comes to management is how easy the hardware and software is going to be to keep their people connected and synchronized. Another thing from the managerial point of view may also be reliability. The job of management is to make sure that every process is going smoothly and to plan and/or policy. They want the most reliable technology to keep from having to deal with crisis often.

    Choosing hardware and software on the basis of cost is more of an organizational issue. The lower that a business can get, install, house, and keep up the hardware and software, the more profit that is to be made. The second thing while thinking about the organization is how the different hardware and software may impact on the layers of the organization. If a technology can remove a layer of lower or middle management and "flatten" the organization the easier, quicker, and more efficient they can be at providing their service or product.

    Issues to be considered when talking about technology would be if the hardware and software is up-to-date but not too advanced. The hardware and software should be old enough that it can be run on most machines but not too out-of-date that it cannot complete necessary functions. Another issue concerning technology is what is the main purpose it is supposed to perform. A company doesn't want a software that has so much extra functionality that they paid for but can't utilize and they don't want to under spend and have software and hardware that can't handle their workload.

    This week I read chapter 5 and the case study for Salesforce.com and completed the assignment which was in place of a clicker or paper quiz this week. My group is still in the process of finding a company to use for our Google Ad project. That is something that I didn't get done but need to. I also am completing the weekly journal for this week. Those are all the tasks I completed/ didn't complete for this week.

    This week we learned more about technology instead of organization. We learned about the history of hardware and software and their advancement through the years. We talked about Moore's Law which basically says that technology doubles in every aspect about every 18 months. We went over IT infrastructure which includes:

Computer HW Platforms including servers, mainframes, and client machines, Operating System Platforms which manages files and controls the hardware what to do, Enterprise SW Applications which work across departments, Data Management and Storage which is just means where the data is stored, Network and Telecommunications which enables easy transfer of information, Internet Platforms like intranets, extranets, and the internet, and Consulting Systems Integration which links the systems together to work. We also went over different contemporary hardware platform trends such as cloud computing and the mobile digital platform. That is what I learned from class this week from the very informative class we had on Tuesday.