Elizabeth's Internet Technology Journey

Are landing pages really more valuable than home pages?

2010-11-17T22:06:00.006-05:00

According to Joshua Porter in his blog, Performable, the landing page is definitely more valuable than the home page, and by valuable you can infer you get more conversions from a landing page than from a home page. So many of the articles that discuss the ROI on landing pages versus the home page tell you how to increase the ROI (i.e., have more conversions) but not necessarily why this is the case.

Landing pages and forms are actual interaction points-the home page is a one-way communication point, you communicate with the user; a landing page and/or form is two-way, the user can communicate back to you. If you "listen" to the conversation you will be better informed on what your customers need/what and therefore can provide it.
Landing pages contain the information a customer needs to make the decision to do business with you, no matter what business you are in.
Landing pages contain very specific information for a very specific audience. The landing page provides the information necessary to close the deal after the customer has shown interest.
Home pages are a catch-all. The home page is the funnel that catches all incoming user traffic whether it is a new visitor, returning visitor, family and friends, and so forth. The home page has to be designed to appeal to all visitors and not be too specific to any one type of user. Home pages have to handle everything which is a totally different purpose than that of a landing page.
Home pages are often "political", meaning every department/unit of the business wants a significant piece of the home page. The thinking here is that because the home page gets the most traffic it must be the most important page of the web site. This is not true (re-read #1-#3 above). This leads to wasting time and money on the design of the home page when it offers little to no return on the investment.

Please do not misunderstand, the home page is an important part of the overall web site and therefore, time, money and energy has to be devoted to it. The home page should guide the visitor to other pages within the site, i.e., a landing page. But because the landing page serves to close the deal (i.e., conversion) where the home page does not, it makes sense to focus a majority of your design efforts here because you want to be profitable, no matter what business you are in.

J Cornelius

2010-11-13T17:49:00.002-05:00

J Cornelius with CoffeeCup software was a guest speaker in our MIST 7540 class. J has been involved in software development for many years. He has a wide and varied background in both the business and technical sides of web development. He also is the organizer of the Atlanta Web Design Group (AWDG). He continues to be very active in the AWDG.

The one take away for me from what J talked about is to follow where my imagination takes me. J challenged my MIT class to continue to be innovative and imaginative with regard to web development. There is so still so much to be discovered about what the web can do and do for users. J wants us to "think outside the box". We should go about web development without thinking about the "what ifs", but just do it.

J is an example of the term, walking the talk. CoffeeCup began in the middle 1990s as a coffee house where some of the employees did a little web design and development on the side. As the web grew and matured, their web work quickly became more profitable than the coffee house. J and the other employees of CoffeeCup have developed innovative user friendly software to help anyone develop "cool websites" and they continue to be innovative (think outside the box). An example of this is S-Drive which is currently in beta testing. S-Drive will allow a user with one click of a button to put a website online. As development continues on S-Drive, according to J, there will be more "cool" features such as file sharing. Continuing to think outside the box is the "cool" thing.

A conversation with Luke Wroblewski

2010-11-04T14:02:00.002-04:00

Actually, I listened to a podcast of a conversation between Luke W. and Jared Spool. Luke was previously employed with Yahoo but now owns his own company, Ideation and Design. While he was at Yahoo, he was instrumental in creating many innovative web functions and applications, most notably LiveSearch back in 2005. But Yahoo chose not to put LiveSearch on Yahoo because of the server load implications. LiveSearch doesn't wait for the user to complete the search term and click Go before beginning the search, it actively searches based on what the user is typing, a search as you go. When Yahoo developed LiveSearch in 2005, servers and programming languages weren't as robust as they are now and server hits and loads were a big issue. Luke and Jared brought up LiveSearch because Google just announced a similar product, Google Instant. Since Luke developed LiveSearch in 2005, he feels Google is tardy to the party with regard to active searching. However, user expectations are much higher now than in 2005 and we expect to have our search results immediately. So maybe Google isn't tardy but just fashionably late.

As the podcast continued Luke stated several times that just because you can develop and deploy a new design doesn't mean you have to. As a web designer you have to be very careful in choosing when to use cutting edge techniques, both for the client paying you to design and for the end user. An example of cutting edge technology on the web is dynamic web forms, basically building a form that uses JavaScript to "do something" based on what the user does with the form. Think radio buttons that determine what data to return or spell checking on a text field or retrieving data from a data base. You have to be choosy on where you put these interactive forms because you want the most bang for your buck.

Another consideration, especially with dynamic forms is what to do about older browsers that do not support such technology. Per Luke, don't worry about the older browsers just concentrate on the newer ones. I'm not sure I totally agree with this. You have to carefully determine your target audience demographics, including browsers, and then decide if you can basically ignore a large segment of the web population. In my opinion, only after this careful evaluation can you consider targeting only newer browsers.

Lastly, Luke and Jared discussed Apple Ping stating it is an example of a poor user experience. They said Apple usually gets it right with regard to a great user experience but not this time. Both feel that Ping is beyond help and should be quietly withdrawn, reworked and redeployed so that it provides the user experience we all expect from an Apple product.

Web Usability

2010-11-04T13:09:00.003-04:00

Web usability, in its simplest terms is the ability to use the web. Jakob Nielsen, ("the guru of web usability"), defines usability as "a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word usability also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process". We all probably can agree that when using a web site or the internet in general, we want what we want when we want it and we don't want to have to search for what we want. Or at least this is my opinion. But the real work begins when we try to design a web site to meet the needs of a wide range of web users.

In the 6/10/09 of webdesgnerdepot.com 10 tips to create a more usable web was discussed. These 10 tips are a mix of common sense ideas and tricks learned from years of designing web sites and all can be implemented without much difficulty. Some of the tips I agree with, some not so much but it won't hurt to implement them and see what happens.

Create active navigation--be sure to always let the user know where s/he is on the site. For example, highlighting the section name in the navigation bar.
Create clickable labels and buttons--by clicking on the field label or button the field (form element) is highlighted which, in theory, makes it easier for the user.
Link the logo back to the home page--making the logo take the user back to the home page is preferable to having a "Home" tab. The logo is almost always at the top of the page and easy to see, rather than having the user search for a tab which can be anywhere. An added benefit is you can link the logo to your web analytics and use it as a click tracker.
Increase the "hit" area on a link--do this by adding padding around links to make the clickable area larger to prevent misclicks. This is especially helpful with mobile sites when the area for the user is already small.
Add focus to form fields--this is very similar to #2 but rather than clicking a button or label to highlight the field, the field is highlighted to alert the user that something is required of them, or that something just happened.
Provide useful 404 page information--does the user really care why a page is unavailable, not really. She does care that the page can't be found but she also needs to know what to do about it, i.e., a link to another page or a search box, something to help her get to where she wants to go.
Use copy text and verbiage to create a casual, inviting environment--basically don't use geek speak, write like you are speaking with a friend.
Use line height adjustments to increase readability--make the copy look more like a book or newspaper, don't compact the lines together.
Use white space--or the reverse of this is don't use too much white space. Be careful to space headings and paragraphs together so the user doesn't have to search or guess where to do next.
Be accessible--no matter how hard you try to design a user friendly, usable web site, users will have questions or problems will come up so provide a place for the user to contact you and be sure to respond to the questions or complaints. Remember customer service matters.

It is the little things that often separate a good web site from a great web site. Try some or all of these tips and come up with some of your own. The fun comes in designing a site and having people enjoy and use your designs.

Web Typography

2010-09-27T14:21:00.002-04:00

Web typography, the use of fonts on the web. Sounds simple enough. You design your web site, choose a font, and write the HTML & CSS code for your site and it looks good. However, it is not this easy. To be able to use a font in a browser, the font has to be available to browser, either native to the browser or be imported from another site. This is where it can get tricky. CSS has a @font-face tag and a URL link to the fonts you can use to pull in fonts to be used. Sounds like a plan that will work. But as Lee Corso says, "not so fast my friend".

First, to use a font on the web it has to be licensed to be used on the web, and not too many fonts are licensed for web use. If you use a font you purchased that is not licensed for the web you may be violating your end user licensing agreement with the font foundry (this is no small consequence). Second, not all browsers support the @font-face tag for all types of fonts. I don't really understand why the decision would be made to deploy a browser with less functionality (or stated another way, a competitive advantage) than a competitor's browser but there is a major player that did just that.

Why, you might wonder, is this lack of consistency even a factor to be considered? It occurs because there are no established standards regarding the licensing of fonts to be used on the web. The font foundries are close to having a set of standards that will protect their interests while allowing web designers to use fonts that are licensed for the web. Also, the W3C is working on a web font standard.

Don't despair, there is a solution to this problem, a middleman. This middleman is really a company that does all the heavy lifting with regard to negotiating the licensing agreements and technological issues for fonts. You pay a monthly fee to the company that pays for covering the license for the font as well as hosting the fonts. The good news is these fonts will work on any browser. The bad news is that not all fonts are available even to these middleman companies. But it is a start and for that we are grateful.

Why Use Web Standards?

2010-09-09T13:14:00.000-04:00

Do you want your web site to look good and work well with all browsers? Of course you do. Then web standards are important to you. Back in the olden days, well the late 1990s when the web was in its toddlerhood, most every browser used a different proprietary web format. This was not a great practice but it was not frowned upon because everyone was just learning about the Internet and individuality and independence was the norm. However, as more and more people began using the web it created the need for more and more web developers. Likewise, new browsers were developed, some merged, and some disappeared all together. All these changes created a sort of rat’s nest of web formats.

Multiple web formats makes web development complicated which always increases the costs associated with the initial development because multiple versions of the same site must be developed. However, the increase in costs is not limited to the initial development because over the life time of the site multiple formats must also be supported and maintained. You might think this is crazy talk and to control costs you can support one or two web formats, but do you choose which ones to support and which ones to ignore. I don’t know if you realize this, but by choosing to ignore certain formats you are by default choosing to ignore the web users whose browser is using that format. Can you afford to ignore potential customers or users? I didn’t think so.

There is an easy way to avoid having to choose what web formats to support or not support, and it is a simple decision, use the standard web format put form by the Web Standards Project. The web standards that were developed (and continue to be developed) in the WaSP ensures going forward that by using these coding standards a web site will work with any web browser. You won’t have to make the choice of what to support or not support. You put lots of time, energy, and money into coding your web site and you want it to be attractive and user friendly and available to everyone. By using these web standards when you code you won’t have to worry about browsers, you just have to worry about almost everything else.

The Art (?) of Information Architecture

2010-09-01T12:05:00.004-04:00

Information Architecture (the short definition) is: analyzing, organizing, and structuring information on websites so the average user can easily find what s/he is looking for. A simple enough idea but is it simple (read easy) to do?

The Information Architect (IA, for short) has to strike a balance between what the owner of the web site wants (requirements), the content of the site (what to keep from an existing site and what to replace), and what the user wants and/or needs. It is like someone juggling, too much of one will impact the others, it may be in a good way or maybe not so good. This is where the "Art" (the skill and creativity needed for an endeavor) part of IA comes into the mix.

A fairly common thing to find when dissecting a web site is the design of an organization's web site mimics the organizational structure of the entity. This usually happens because the Information Architect follows the existing flow or structure of the organization. However, does the site user know (or care) that the Company's financial information is gathered and managed unders the direction of the VP of Customer Service and will be located under the Customer Service tab on the web site because this is the way the reporting structure is organized? I doubt the user will care, all she wants to do is land on the web site home page and with one or two mouse clicks find what she is looking for. Here the "Art" is being used to balance the company needs with the user needs.

Thinking about our user in the above paragraph, what does the Information Architect have to do to make the user experience a good one so hopefully, she will return again and again to our web site? The IA has to be able to figure out how the end user thinks and then use this information to structure the web site so that it is intuitive for the user to move around and through the site.

Try using these 8 steps the next time you are asked to build an Information Architecture.

Understand the web site (system) requirements
Talk to the end users of the existing site, or if there is no existing site, conduct interviews of potential and/or targeted users
Develop a draft architecture and get client feedback on the proposed architecture.
Understand that this is an iterative process, you won't get it right the first time around
Eventhough this won't be the final architecture design, document, document and document some more
Develop persona(s) and define what tasks these persona(s) will do when using the site (storyboarding)
Have the project team review the storyboards
Create detailed page layouts to support the storyboards (this also provides valuable information for the web designers and developers

Bottom line, effective information architecture should provide the means for users to quickly and easily find what they are looking for on a web site.

From Good to Great Web Writing

2010-08-26T12:18:00.001-04:00

Writing for the web is not like writing for most any other media because a web user is unique. This fact creates challenges when creating and/or editing the copy for a web site. A balance between not enough and too much information must be found and maintained so that the site above all else meets the goal(s) of the client and is creative and inviting to the site visitor.

Web readers don’t read web copy line for line, the majority of these readers scan the copy looking for the “highlights” of the page or for something interesting to catch their eye. Printed material has a definite beginning, middle and end, however, a web site can have many entry and exit points which makes it essential that the writing be precise and concise without being repetitive. A good web writing must be: useful-- gives the user the information she wants and needs; usable—has descriptive headings, clear navigation cues, and is concise; engaging—the site is personable and not just a marketing brochure; and findable—the web user has to be able to find what she is looking for on the web site.

Great web writing takes dedication, creativity, organization, intelligence, a sense of humor, and a thick skin. There are a few (10 to be exact) tips to produce good web copy according to Erin Anderson, in Interact With Web Standards:

1. Love the inverted pyramid—start with the ending (conclusion) and work
work backwards

2. Believe less is more (most of the time)—don’t overwrite or use unnecessary
words

3. Avoid sounding like an infomercial—write to inform not to impress, speak
plainly but be specific, limit the use of bold or italicized copy

4. Make your copy easy to scan--paragraphs should be 60 words or less, headlines should be eight words or less, page length is dependent onthe content of the site (just be aware that size does matter), and headings should be placed strategically to guide the user through the pages

5. Write killer headings—help the reader to scan the page to find what she is
looking for

6. Lead with active words—helps to keep it simple and concise

7. Use simple sentences--avoid semicolons, too many commas, and be stingy with the adjectives and adverbs

8. Keep your promises—don’t reference a site with a link that doesn’t work, and
make sure the links and labels match the page content

9. Set up a review process—have someone else review your work

10. Steal (borrow?) from good websites--review the web sites you visit and keep a list of what works and what doesn't work

And don’t forget, a great web site is never finished. The content should be reviewed on a regular schedule to be sure it continues to be relevant, timely, accurate, and accomplishes the client’s goal(s).

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

2010-04-26T18:24:00.005-04:00

Overview of ITIL

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of standard practices for managing IT services, development, and operations. The United Kingdom’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) developed the standards, or set of recommendations, in the 1980s. These standards are published in “books”, the initial set of books numbered over 30 volumes. Because of the massive amount of information, the CCTA consolidated the 30 volumes into 8 books in 2000 for version 2 of the library. In 2009, the Office of Government Commerce (a successor of the CCTA) announced that second version of the ITIL would be withdrawn and as of early 2010 version 3 with 5 volumes is available. Version 2 has nine books in the ITIL, the ninth book is ITIL Small-Scale Implementation that has additional guidelines for smaller IT units.

The original eight books in version 2 of the ITIL are:

1. Service Support - focuses on the user of the IT services to provide the information and services the user needs to support business services

2. Service Delivery - focuses on the services needed to provide support to the business users. Included in this book is service level management, capacity management, continuity management, availability management, and financial management.

3. Security Management - focuses on protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information assets.

4. ICT Infrastructure Management - (ICT is an acronym for Information and Communication Management) focuses on the best practices for requirements analysis, planning, design, deployment and ongoing operations management.

5. ICT Technical Support - focuses on providing support to the other processes, i.e., research and development, marketing, and the creation of documentation

6. The Business Perspective - is a collection of best practices to address the issues encountered in providing high quality IT management

7. Application Management - focuses on best practices to improve the overall quality of IT software development and support

8. Software Asset Management - includes best practices for maintaining software license compliance, tracking inventory and software asset use, maintaining policies and procedures for defining, deploying, configuring, using and retiring the software assets.

ITIL Service Desk

The ITIL Service Desk is a component of the Service Support book of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The Service Desk is the single point of contact or entry for an end user that needs help with an issue. The goal of the Service Desk is to help restore normal business operations with little or no business impact to the Customer within the stated response time frames and priorities. To accomplish this goal an ITIL Service Desk performs at a minimum the following activities: Receive all calls and emails on incidents/problems, Incident recording, Incident classification, Incident prioritization, Incident escalation, Update the Customer and other parties on progress, Provide communication for other ITIL activities such as release notifications and change schedules, Reporting on Service Desk performance.

The ITIL Service Desk is the process used to combine the best practices detailed in two ITIL books, Service Support and Service Delivery, and has two main functions, incident control/management and communication. These functions can be further defined into the following sub-functions:

Service Support

Incident management

Problem management

Configuration management

Release management

Change management

Service Delivery

Availability management

Capacity management

IT Service Continuity management

Financial management

Service Level management

The Service Desk is the mechanism the Customer uses to record an incident or problem. It is also used as the communication portal for monitoring the activities and processes associated with the sub-functions listed above. The sub-functions are described in more detail below.

Service Support

Incident management aims to restore normal business operations with little or no impact to the Customer by providing a process to record, track, and review an incident. According to the ITIL documentation there is a difference between an incident and a problem. An incident is defined as any event that deviates from the standard operation of the process and causes or has the potential to cause a disruption in the Customer’s service. A problem is an unknown underlying cause of one or more incidents.

Problem management aims to determine and resolve the root cause of incidents and problems and to minimize the adverse impact to the Customer’s business. Also part of problem management is the error control process and the problem control process. The error control process, through an iterative process, diagnoses known errors until they are eliminated by successfully implementing a change using the Change management process. The problem control process has four defined activities: identification of the root cause of reported incidents, problem identification and recording, problem classification, and problem investigation and diagnosis.

Configuration management is the process responsible for maintaining information about configuration items required to deliver an IT Service, enabling control of the infrastructure by monitoring and maintaining information on all the resources needed to deliver services. At a minimum this includes planning, control, status monitoring, verification and audit.

Release management focuses on the protection of the production environment and its services through the use of formal methodologies and procedures. A release is defined as a collection of hardware, software, documentation, processes or other components required to implement one or more approved changes to IT Services. The goals of release management include: planning the rollout of the software or hardware, designing and implementing procedures for the distribution and installation of the release, communicating to and managing the expectations of the Customer during the release, and controlling the distribution and installation of the release into the IT systems.

Change management is the process of using standardized methodologies and procedures to reduce the risk of any changes to the software or hardware adversely impacting the Customer. A change is defined as the addition, modification or removal of anything that could have an effect on IT services. The main goals of change management are to minimize disruption to service, reduce the need for back-out activities, and efficient utilization of resources involved in the change.

Service Delivery

Availability management responsible for ensuring that all IT infrastructure, processes, tools, roles etc are appropriate for the agreed service level targets for availability. The components of availability management include: reliability, maintainability, serviceability, resilience and security.

Capacity management is responsible for ensuring that the capacity of IT services infrastructure is able to deliver agreed service level targets in a cost effective and timely manner. Capacity Management considers all resources required to deliver the service, and plans for short, medium and long-term business requirements.

IT service continuity management is the recovery of the IT infrastructure used to delivery the services. This includes plans are defined and put into action that ensure that the services can recover and continue in operation should a serious incident or problem occur.

Financial management is making sure that the IT infrastructure is purchased at the most effective cost. This includes calculating the costs of running and maintaining the IT processes so that the company understands the true costs of the IT systems. This also helps the company in setting prices for services provided to the Customer.

Service level management is perhaps the most important piece of the Service Desk process. This is what the Customer uses to be sure they are getting the service they are paying for. A service level is a measured and reported achievement against one or more service level targets. Service level management involves the use of metrics compared against a benchmark.

Diagram of an ITIL Service Desk process

Profile of an ITIL Consulting Company

Enterprise Consulting Services (ECS) is a “boutique consulting firm specializing in IT service management consulting, implementation and outsourcing using the ITIL framework”. The target audience for their services is CEOs, CFOs, and CIOs with a “charter to improve service and reduce the total cost of the technology support infrastructure. The services offered by ECS include IT Service Management, IT Asset Life Cycle Management and IT Security Management across the “IT value chain”. The ECS services overview sheet details how their consulting services will do to help a client’s overall IT processes. They also include a diagram of what a Service Desk Design should look like but their documentation is very quick to point out that their services and solutions are vendor neutral. However, the documentation points out that ECS has worked with many different providers, including Microsoft, Dell, HP, Altiris, and Courion.

The listing of clients on the company website is quite diverse. It includes Bausch & Lomb, EnergyEast (a utility company), Wegmans, Constellation Brands, Ontario County e-Government, Citi, TRW, Sungard , and SMU. Of particular interest to me was the implementation of an ITIL initiative for EnergyEast. EnergyEast is an electric and gas distribution company that serves 3 million customers in five states in the Northeast US. ECS integrated incident management, asset request management and security identity management into the company’s infrastructure. Included in this was a redesign of the existing incident, request and monitoring processes using the ITIL frameworks, along with the implementation of a self service “Smart Form” that provided one stop shopping for end user incident management.

ITIL Software Tool

SysAid Technologies has a Service Desk product call SysAid. This product is offered as a Software as a Service (SaaS). The product incorporates the best practices as details in the ITIL documentation. SysAid has two versions, one has what are deemed as core modules and the full version that includes an ITIL Problem Management module, an ITIL Change Management module, and an ITIL Configuration Management Database module in addition to the core modules.

This is a web based product that uses a 3 tiered architecture configuration (an end user view, an application layer, and a database layer).

The core modules included in their Service Desk product are:

Helpdesk - has all the core functionality for incident tracking for an ITIL Service Desk product

End-User Portal - easy submission of incidents and requests, includes a FAQ database for users to use in resolving their own technical issues

Knowledgebase - database for storing resolutions for the most common service requests

Asset Management - houses all hardware and software changes, and can interface with external purchasing systems

Remote Control - IT personnel can gain control over remote computers

Reports & Analysis - includes pre-defined reports along with the ability to create reports "on the fly"

SysAid Chat - an instant message service for anyone logged into SysAid

IT Benchmark - monitors metrics against defined benchmarks

The additional modules that can be added to SysAid are:

Tasks and Projects - a project management tracking tool

Advanced Monitoring - provides additional network monitoring

Manager Dashboard - provides a real time snapshot of the overall Service Desk system, also has the ability to drill down for additional information

ITIL Problem Management - tracks and manages root problem causes

ITIL Change Management - track, monitor and report on all past and current change activity, schedule and monitor progress for all future changes

ITIL Configuration Management Database - helps the user to track elements in the IT network

Software Design Patterns

2010-04-18T21:50:00.002-04:00

Software Design is easy enough to understand but what the heck is a pattern when thinking about software design. Is it repetition, a template, a basic design paradigm, just what the heck is it. It turns out that a software design pattern is all of the above and more.

Christopher Alexander has been credited with being the first to use the term “design patterns”. He first used the term in 1964 to describe architectural patterns, a solution to a commonly occurring architectural problem. He saw the same problems appearing over and over in different architectural projects, i.e., how many windows does a room need, and the same solutions being used for these problems, i.e., the number of windows needed depends on the function of the room (context), the desires of the customer, and the buildings products available. Alexander further stated that “a pattern described a problem that occurs over and over again and the core solution to that problem is such a way that you can use the solution a million times over without doing it the same way twice”.

As Christopher Alexander continued his examination of design patterns he coined the term “pattern language” which is simply a collection of design patterns that relate to a particular field. More precisely, pattern language is a structured method of describing good design practices within a field of expertise. This is what is referred to in today’s software environment as “best practices”. Emulating good design decisions while steering away from bad design decisions (anti-patterns).
According to Alexander every pattern we define must be formulated in the form of a rule, which establishes a relationship between a context, a system of forces that arises in that context and a configuration that allows these forces to resolve themselves in that context.

Pattern language as applied to software was further defined by what is known as the “Gang of Four”, Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides. They wrote a book, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. In this book, published in the mid 1990’s the Gang of Four used the premises put forth by Christopher Alexander to describe reusable solutions to commonly recurring problems in software design. Reusing design patterns helps prevent issues that cause major problems (using best practices or learning from other’s mistakes).

This all sounds interesting but how does this apply to software design. I think it all boils down to this, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! In today’s world, software design patterns are most often applied at the architectural level and one of the most often used patterns is the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. However, there are many more design patterns relevant to software design. I personally like the three-tier architecture, a client-server architecture with distinct processes for the presentation, the application processing, and the data management.

The three-tier architecture has three distinct layers or tiers that are independent of each other but are connected by defined interfaces. This design allows for the tiers to be upgraded or replaced independently of the others as the need may arise, such as a change in requirements or technology.

The presentation tier is at the top. This tier displays (presents) the information to the user. Typically, this involves HTML pages and JSPs. This is what the user sees and interacts with. The application tier (Logic tier in the diagram below) controls the flow of the software application. This tier is sometimes referred to as the business rules tier because it is here that the business rules are implemented. The application tier controls the flow of data between the presentation tier and the data tier. The third tier is the data management tier. This is where the databases are found, where the data is stored and retrieved.

A diagram of the Three Tier Design Pattern.

There is a definite difference between the MCV design pattern and the Three Tier Architecture design pattern. In the Three Tier architecture design pattern the client tier does not communicate directly with the data tier, all communication must pass through the application tier. In contrast, in the Model View Controller design pattern, each object communicates with the other objects, which means less independence and modularity.

SQL Server Modeling Services (FKA-Oslo)

2010-02-07T16:06:00.003-05:00

The first anyone heard of a Microsoft product with code name “Oslo” was around October 2007. The first time the public saw Oslo was at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in October 2008 and it was described as:

1. A new programming language to help architects and developers describe

models

2. A visual modeling tool

3. A repository for storing different models in a database

Oslo was originally designed to be an add-on to Microsoft’s Visual Studio software, and it included Quadrant, an interface tool, and was written in a modeling language, M, and Microsoft hoped to be able to ship Oslo sometime in late 2009. Deployment of this product has not happened yet.

In the year following the initial release of information on Oslo, more information came to light regarding this new modeling software product. It was touted as a product to simplify development of applications because it would be a repository in an SQL database of models and related metadata that would allow everyone in an organization to look at models “holistically with database tools like Microsoft Access, Excel or SQL server reporting services”.

The programming language, M, is designed for the .NET platform. This language is described as a declarative language, but I’m not sure exactly what this is. Another interesting fact about M is that it is an open source language. I think this is interesting because I didn’t think Microsoft would ever give anything away for free, which is essentially what open source programming languages are. Microsoft initially was solely responsible for developing the M language with review by the M Specification Community (an online discussion group), but now Microsoft is using the contributions from this group in the specs for the M language. Again, an interesting concept for Microsoft.

During the development of Oslo it has evolved from the initial vision for the product. Most notably the code name “Oslo” is no longer used, this software is now called SQL Server Modeling Services and it still uses Quadrant and M language. However, it is no longer an add-on to Visual Studio but will now ship out in a future release of SQL Server. Microsoft has not said when this will occur. Again, I find this unusual because Microsoft will rush to send products to market and the fact that SQL Server Modeling Services has not been released yet is not a typical Microsoft action. Also, now this software is using UML (Unified Modeling Language) to import and export UML compliant files from any vendor. I think this is amazing because Microsoft if not known for using standardized protocols and languages, it is more of a proprietary type of company.

SQL Server Modeling Services (SQL SMS) is still a repository for storing different models in a database that can be used by Microsoft products, third party vendor applications, and customer developed applications and tools. This repository will contain application definitions and will allow tracking and managing changes to applications. SQL SMS will include pre-built models for web, web services and data domains that can be used as starting places for users. And Quadrant, described as a model editor, is the application to be used for viewing and editing data in the repository.

Is there a difference between Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and SQL Server Modeling Services? First, what is BPMN? It is a standard for business process modeling developed by the Business Process Management Initiative and is currently supported by the Object Management Group (OMG). And, yes, there is a difference between these two. BPMN are the standards and guidelines regarding what should be included in a BPM tool, and SQL Server Modeling Services is a software product developed by Microsoft.

I don’t know if SQL Server Modeling Services will be a “home run” for Microsoft or not. Microsoft is a late entrant into the modeling software arena, as there are several similar products already available for purchase. And even though, Microsoft has developed this product to be work with other applications currently being used by customers, it remains to be seen if this repository will work as described. In my opinion, the longer Microsoft waits to ship this product, the farther behind in the modeling world Microsoft will be. Microsoft is playing catch up with a moving target and catching the target (currently available modeling applications) is unlikely and surpassing the target almost impossible.

Google Adwords

2010-01-18T20:49:00.005-05:00

Google Adwords allows the user to advertise to the target audience effectively and efficiently. The user determines who to and where to advertise, what to pay for this advertising including a maximum daily amount, and guides the user to accomplish all this with little or no advertising education.

Adwords works on the premise that an advertiser will pay an amount to place an ad at the top of a Google search. However, with Google Adwords the price the advertiser is willing to pay is just one aspect of how an ad is displayed. This evens the playing field, meaning an advertiser with a large advertising budget does not have an advantage over an advertiser with a smaller budget.
In determining the positioning of an ad on a page, Adwords uses a combination of cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid and quality score. The difference between CPC and CPM is with CPC the advertiser is charged the bid price each time an end user clicks on the ad and with CPM the advertiser is charged the bid price for each 1000 times the ad appears on the search page regardless of whether the end user clicks on the ad or not.

The quality score is a numerical value determined by the keyword click through rate, relevance of your ad text, historical keyword performance and other factors. Basically, if the keywords you choose drive customers to your site (high click through rate), the landing page from the click through is appropriate for the chosen keyword and the "other factors" are indicative of quality, your quality score will increase. And as your quality score increases the price you pay per click will decrease (lower your costs). Click through rate is the measure of how many people have clicked on your ad, a higher click through rate means more people have clicked on your ad.

One of the most unique features of Google Adwords (and there are many) is the ability of the advertiser to monitor on a near real time basis how an ad campaign is doing and can make modifications to the ad, keyword, target audience, and CPC/CPM bid to improve the placement of the ad on the Google search page immediately. This is very different from other types of advertising where a there is often a long lead time for any changes.

Enterprise 2.0

2009-12-13T20:46:00.002-05:00

Enterprise 2.0 is the use of social media and social networking tools in a business setting. Sounds easy enough but Enterprise 2.0 is so much more than this. The term was purported to by first used by Andrew McAfee (a professor of IT at MIT and Harvard) in the spring of 2006, although there are others that are sometimes credited with coining this term. Whoever first defined and used Enterprise 2.0, the main idea is to encourage employees to exchange ideas, learn from each other and become more independent learners. Some of the tools used in Enterprise 2.0 are blogs, wikis, and in-house social networking sites (similar to Facebook).

Legacy systems, i.e., the internet or web, impose structure prior to use by employees, where Enterprise 2.0 encourages use over structure. Before continuing to discuss Enterprise 2.0, it is beneficial to know what Web 2.0 includes, as Enterprise 2.0 is often contrasted with Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is defined as the development of applications to allow information sharing and collaboration on the web, i.e, it allows internet users to interact with one another rather than just passively viewing information.

Enterprise 2.0 vs Web 2.0

Enterprise 2.0	Web 2.0
Internal facing	External facing
Behind the firewall	Open to the world
Business	Social
Knowledge capture	Sharing random things/thoughts
Wiki, blog	Websites
Productive & Efficiency	Time consuming
Reduction of email	Email producing
Collaboration

The emphasis with Enterprise 2.0 is collaboration and information sharing within the business or organization. Some possible uses of Enterprise 2.0 are: profile pages for products, an online community within a business used to find someone within the business with a particular knowledge or skill, RSS feeds to keep employees informed, and wikis for company documentation.

The most important aspect of Enterprise 2.0, in my opinion, is keeping everything behind the firewall, i.e., the documentation is not available to the world. This is especially important to keep intellectual property protected. Another important thing is to be sure the information and documentation sharing within the business/company is correct. This requires someone within the business to actively monitor and edit the wikis to be sure the information available is correct and accurate. If employees use the wikis or blogs as a resource for information to provide to customers/clients then this is especially critical. And if I am honest in my evaluation of Enterprise 2.0, I don’t see it taking the place of more structured processes and documentation because of the risk of working with inaccurate and/or misleading information. I think using blogs within a business as an informal way to seek opinions or subject matter experts would be one of the more common uses of the tools included in Enterprise 2.0.

In our MIST7500 class, we talked about and used several of the tools included when talking about Enterprise 2.0. Most notably are: aggregations, blog sites, wikis, social media, and application programming interfaces (APIs). We had class assignments to set up and use aggregations, whether RSS feeds or news aggregation tools. We also had to establish a blog that we used to share our experiences in the MIT program in the Terry College of Business. We also used our blogs to share research and to share interesting information with other classmates. This is similar to how a blog would be used within a business, I imagine. We also used Wikipedia many times when researching different topics during class discussions. And when I have to research something I often begin with Wikipedia and then search blogs for additional information, especially for internet technology topics. Even though I use many of the Enterprise 2.0 tools, I don’t always trust the information, you might say I use the information but I verify, verify, verify.

The end of the semester

2009-12-13T18:55:00.002-05:00

My goodness, where did the time go. It seems only 2 weeks ago that we were entering Room 108 for the very first time, some people knew each other but most did not. I was very nervous because I don't have an IT technical background, I have a business background. I have managed programmers and you do pick up some bits and pieces of programming but not enough to "talk the talk".

What a difference a semester can make. Now I can "talk the talk", most of the time. One of the most amazing things was the willingness of my class mates to help me get up to speed in using the software and techniques needed to accomplish the tasks assigned in the Internet Technology class. My class mates are awesome! I hope I will be afforded the opportunity to repay their kindnesses when the business and project management classes come around.

Java

2009-11-19T11:35:00.003-05:00

This past week in both my classes we discussed and/or used Java. I was very nervous going into this because I have not used Java since finishing my introductory classes about 4 months ago. And in the course of my work day, I don't have the opportunity to use any programming language other than HTML. But to my surprise, I was familiar with just about everything that was discussed. This is a big deal because for everything else we have done this semester, I am the one that has brought up the tail end (basically I have been clueless). But I on this I think I know what is going on!

Another interesting thing I learned about this past week is Google Wave. Right now it is by invitation only and I sure wish I would be invited. Google Wave is "an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration." Some of the suggested uses of Wave include; organizing events, group projects, photo sharing, meeting notes, brainstorming, and interactive games. Basically, it is an online realtime product to be used any time you need to collaborate or communicate with someone whether they are in the next cube or across the country. Several of my classmates were invited to "join the Wave" and we had a brief demonstration. To me it was similar to a webinar but more interactive. I really like this product from Wave, and as I said before, I can't wait to use it!

Net Neutrality

2009-11-12T12:58:00.004-05:00

I had not given the concept of net neutrality much thought, only giving it a minimum of consideration because of possible Congressional intervention in the internet. Don't get me wrong I am all for everyone having the same opportunity and access to the internet. However, I am very much against the enactment of laws with the creation of agencies to give everyone the same internet access. The proponents of such legislation argue that without laws the internet providers will increase the costs to use the internet based on your usages. I don't find this to be a big deal. Right now I pay for electricity, water, and natural gas the same way. I don't expect to be given something without me having to do something is return, in this case pay a fee. If I can't pay, I won't use it.

Another thing I am concerned about is how and who will pay for the oversight required for net neutrality. I don't think the people in Washington have given this aspect of et neutrality. Ultimately, the people will be the ones footing the bill for this through increase in taxes, or if internet providers are required to provide access to everyone then the costs of this will be passed on to the customers. Either way we pay.

Bottom line, I don't like government intervention into more of my private life. With net neutrality, the government could monitor my internet usage and at the same time read my emails and see what sites I am looking at. It scares me because this is what happened in the old Soviet Union, government monitoring and intervention. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything to hide and if you ask me I will tell you what I do. But don't snoop, just ask.

iPhone Development

2009-11-04T21:09:00.002-05:00

In this assignment we are to look for sites that discuss the best practices for developing Web sites for viewing on an iPhone. This sounds easy enough until you begin the search. The most obvious and one of the better sites for this is the iPhone Dev Center. I realize this is sort of cheating but when looking for best practices why not go to the source. And in the process I discovered that the Apple Developer site is a really good site. It has information on working with viewport (what is viewable on the iPhone screen), CSS for good iPhone pages, Webkit and iUI. And the surprising thing is that Apple, more times than not, will give you the code to use to make your web site viewable on the iPhone. But using only Apple for iphone development best practices is probably not the smartest thing because it is only one view of how things should be, admittedly, it is one of the most important sites but it shouldn't be the only site to use.

Viewport is not specific to iPhone development although I thought it was when we first started working with it. Basically it is a tool to be used to mimic the viewable screen to display for whatever you are developing and it is used in many other types of software, i.e. CAD. I couldn't find a site I thought was useful other than the Apple site for working with viewport. I am still new to coding so I have yet to learn which sites are reliable and which sites are full of baloney.

I was successful in finding a blog about CSS for good iPhone web pages, www. cssdiscussion.com. The information is interesting but dated (last updated in 2007) and this may be due to the amount of information available at the Apple site basically for free. And there were several sites that proffered CSS design tips and best practices but you have to pay for their services, not something I want to do.

One of the interesting things I was able to find was that several search categories in Google combines CSS, WebKit and iUI into one search. WebKit is the development tool you use for iphones. iUI is short for the iPhone User Interface. Most of the sites I found were fee based sites and I didn't bother to look at most of them because I was able to find the information I want on the iPhone Dev site. And I realize I am beginning to sound like a broken record but if it's not broken don't fix it.

There are so very many sites available for iPhone development, some good, some great, and some you are better off not paying any attention to. The trouble comes when trying to determine which is which. Once of our first assignments in our Internet Technology class was to sign up and participate in a news aggregation site. I chose Google Reader and then by some stroke of luck I added a site to my subscription called 'iPhone Development Tutorials'. This is one of the best sites for learning what others have done with iPhone development, what worked and what didn't. To me, this is a great beginning point for new developers to learn about best practices.

Findability

2009-11-04T19:18:00.003-05:00

Findability-defined by Peter Morville in 2005 as the ability of users to identify an appropriate website and navigate the pages of the web site to locate what the user is looking for. Basically, knowing what you want to find and then finding it. Simple enough of a concept but putting this concept into use is a bit trickier.

Search engine optimization (SEO) works to position a web site at the top of search results in a search engine request, and being positioned as high in the search engine results is the goal of SEO.
The higher a web site is listed in the search results the higher the probability a user will go to the site. Going back to the definition of findability, a web site has to anticipate the words and phrases a user will use to search and then incorporate these words/phrases into the web site (search engine optimization), simply said SEO enhances findability. This works only is the user knows what they are looking for on the internet.

How does a web designer, developer or writer determine what does or does not enhance findability? This involves several interrelated things. The site has to be designed to be useful, usable, accessible, and credible. All these add to the findability of a site. And findability is not static, because users are not static. This means that a web site must not remain static. This means that the developers and designers have to continue to monitor the web site through testing any proposed changes to see if the changes increase or decrease the findability.

Search Engine Optimization

2009-11-04T13:12:00.003-05:00

The assignment for our midterm paper required us to research and write about search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEM). So for the most part, our class has a basic understanding of what these terms mean but having the opportunity to talk with someone who does this every day is invaluable. And last Thursday we had this opportunity when we had a guest speaker come talk with us who has several years of experience in using search engine optimization (SEO). Not only is David knowledgeable but he was willing to share tips, insights and best practices for us to use when designing web sites so that they are positioned as high as possible in search engines, i.e., Google, Bing, etc.

Without going into much detail, SEO uses keywords and images on web pages so that search engines will list the site at or near the top in search results. I always thought that SEO and SEM where opposites when dealing with web site. However, as David pointed out search engine marketing is a broader term that encompasses search engine optimization and pay per click (PPC). Search engine optimization is called "organic" because it uses the keywords and tags on the web site for placement in the search results, where pay per click (PPC) is just that, the web site owner pays for placement on a search engine page and the cost is based on the number of times the web site link is selected (clicked).

There were three things that stand out from listening to David and his wealth of knowledge; (1) when deciding what keywords or tags to use, if at all possible, run a comparison between possible choices to see which one will work the best for you (or your client's) website; (2) be very specific in choosing keywords, often times a plural of a word will cause the web site to be placed lower in the search results; and (3) to have more specific search results use quotes ("") around the search phrase. These three things all seem to be "no brainers" to veteran web designers but to me they are a big deal and probably I would not have thought of them on my own.

I wanted to be part of the current MIT class to learn how to manage internet technology projects and programmers. However, the more I learn about the internet and how it works the more excited I become. I want to be part of this technology, hands on, not just an a manager. The guest speakers we have heard in our classes have been awesome! I still have such a long learning curve ahead of me especially in the coding side of this program but I am definitely up for the challenge.

MIT Class

2009-10-28T19:31:00.001-04:00

It has been a very busy week in our MIT program. In our Internet Technology we used the JavaScript to write a small application to run on the ebiz server and display on our iPhone. I am not that good with Java but I could follow along with what we were supposed to do. And surprisingly, my JavaScript worked. However, I did learn several things to do when working with Java, or any programming language.

Java uses opening and closing tags (so does HTML & XML) to tell the program running the code what to do. And you have to use the tags in a set or your code won't compile and run (it will have errors). In my Java classes I always left off the closing tag, not always the same closing tag but I would leave off a tag. In last week's class Dr. Piercy told us that when working with tags, brackets or parens, always put the set (opening and closing) tags and then put your code in between the tags. This way you don't have to worry about missing a tag and you won't spend time looking for the error in your code. Trust me, this will save you an enormous amount of time looking for errors. This tip to add the tags as a pair rather than one at a time is very basic and something that I would have never thought of myself. In the Java classes I was so intent on getting the methods right that I didn't even think of how to minimize my errors. My goodness, I love this tip.

And the most important thing I learned in class this past week is that I can write code and it will work. It is such an amazing thing to be able to write code, compile it, and then it actually works. It is so satisfying!

Best Practices for Videos on the Web

2009-10-22T19:34:00.003-04:00

This is not the definitive list for best practices on video on the web, however, it is a good start. As I continue to learn more about web development this list will evolve.

Best Practices Checklist for Production and Distributing Video on the Web

1. Know your primary users
2. Determine the primary purpose of the web site and the video
3. Make sure the video will play on the most popular versions of all browsers and
bandwidth
4. Use streaming so that a file or codec is not needed
5. Keep the resolution of the video relatively low to allow of faster download speeds
6. Make sure each video serves a clear purpose and enhances rather than
distracts from the site
7. Be sure captions are provided for each video used
8. Be sure download time and playing time for the video are indicated
9. Be mindful of any copyright rules and regulations
10. If using a video on a web site be careful where the video is placed within the site
11. Be very careful if you choose to have the video begin automatically when the page
is accessed, make sure this is appropriate for the situation. If you choose to
have the video auto start, the volume should set so that it is not be too loud or too
soft. The video player should also have volume controls available for the user.
12. Don’t construct barriers to viewing the video, i.e., ask the viewer to download a
special software, register for the site, or log in before the viewer can view the
video
13. Provide the viewer control over the video, not only of the volume, but fast-forward,
rewind, pause, and playback size

2009-10-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

Midterm

Google Docs vs. Zoho

2009-10-01T12:24:00.003-04:00

I have played around with both Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/#all) and Zoho
(http://docs.zoho.com/index.do)but I don't know that I have enough information to accurately compare the two applications. If you do the comparison based on the listing of the options available with each one, it appears that Zoho is the more robust of the two. I also found it interesting that you can sign up to use Zoho by using your Google log in. You can also upload documents from Google Docs to Zoho but I could not determine if the reciprocal was also true.

From the main screen in Zoho you can access and share the following: word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures, music and videos. On the Google Docs you can access and share: word documents or pdf documents, spreadsheets and presentations. You also can access and share your pictures, music and videos but you have to leave the Docs application and access another application and this seems a bit cumbersome compared to Zoho.

Both Zoho and Google Docs have size limitations, Zoho offers 1GB storage for free and then it costs depending on how much storage space you need. Google Docs has size limitations at the individual document level. Granted the sizes in Google are very large and will not impede how most people use the application, however, I don't know of very many non-tech people that really pay attention to the size of an individual document, spreadsheet or presentation.

And this leads directly to probably the deciding factor in which application to use-Google Docs is free and there is a cost to use certain parts within Zoho (in addition to the storage pricing). Free beats not free most every time especially if the differences in the two applications is minor. I think more people are aware of Google Docs and will be more at ease with the way this application works. Google Docs help screens are straight forward with backup documentation. The Zoho help screens are also straight forward but with a little less information on the screen, however, this is augmented by a database for additional help topics.

I would probably choose to use Google Docs because it is more well known of the two and is more likely to be used by my peers and cohorts. However, my preference would be to use Zoho because of the greater number of options within Zoho. And of these two, because of the Google name I believe Docs will be the most successful.

Death comes to the Television industry-or How video broadcasting on the web came to rule the world

2009-09-30T15:54:00.007-04:00

I chose to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog) mainly because it is the one Dr Piercy suggested in our assignment. As I watched this video I was amazed at the clarity of both the audio and video especially since I was watching it using a wireless internet router, and I don't have the most up to date laptop or software. I watched this video on my laptop exactly when I wanted to and when I had to stop to take care of something I just paused the video, took care of the task and came back to my laptop. There were a few commercial breaks, 3 I think, that totaled no more than 30 seconds each which to me is a tolerable amount of time. Afterward, I thought about which TV shows I would now watch using my laptop rather than the television set. What will be the implications to the television industry of having the ability to watch video broadcasting on the web especially if people like me (middle aged woman) turn to the web rather than the family tv set.

The generalization can be made that teens and 20-somethings are less patient and more ego-centric. Basically, they want what they want when and how they want it and if it doesn't fit with their neighbor's wants and needs, then too bad. Video broadcasting plays right into this mindset. It allows the end user to download a movie, television show, video blog, etc at the end user's convenience not when a television executive determines a show should air based on demographics, advertising dollars, or whatever. And the end user is not tied to the television set. As long as there is internet access you can watch a video.

From the end user, or consumer, perspective the advantages of videos via the web are the convenience factor as mentioned above. If you have a computer and internet access then you are set. Also, this type of viewing is relatively low in cost and there is no (or very little) content oversight. The lack of oversight can also be a disadvantage if you happen to have children in the house. However, there is no guarantee that the use of the internet will remain 'free'. Some industry executives believe within the next five years we will be paying for content received via the interest (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10364141-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5). As television revenue decreases the search for other revenue streams will intensify and the likelihood of assessing fees on internet content will be one of the first to be explored.

From the perspective of the producers of internet videos, this is a low cost (relative to television) media and offers small and/or independent film makers the opportunity to showcase his/her work. Also, the lack of content oversight is another advantage over television. As long as the producers of the videos continue to provide what consumers want to see, then advances in the delivery mechanisms will continue (increase bandwidth, faster delivery speed, sharper video & audio) and consumers will continue to use the web and will continue to demand more content which will decrease television usage further ultimately, forcing the television industry to rethink it's current model. What this model will be in the future, I do not know.

Rich Web Technologies

2009-09-28T15:46:00.002-04:00

During class last Thursday we discussed rich web technologies and a few of the available software applications that can be used to deliver content in a more meaningful way to end users. I found it interesting that most of the products we discussed were rolled out to the market place at about the same time. But, the products vary greatly in the features available. The application used most frequently appears to be Adobe AIR and I imagine this is because it is free, works outside the browser and works with all platforms. But most of the other applications we discussed also worked with all platforms, and with the exception of one, work outside the browser, and several of them are also free. So what gives? I don't have the answer but I think the fact that Adobe AIR works with Adobe Flash has a great deal to do with it's popularity. I am aware that other applications also work with Flash but an Adobe application working with an Adobe application is probably a big draw when it comes to choosing which one to use.

I also found it mildly interesting that JavaFX is a late comer to this party. With the popularity of Java I thought the JavaFX application would be one of the major players in the rich media technologies arena. But JavaFX is almost an "also ran" product. By this I mean it came to the market place well after several of the other applications and it is lacking many of the bells and whistles of the others. Because of this, relative to the other applications available, JavaFX is not used by very many developers.

E3 - Twitter Tools

2009-09-23T21:24:00.002-04:00

One of the nice things about Twitter is the Twitter API. The Twitter developers provide code so that other application developers can easily incorporate Twitter into their applications. And the code is free, how awesome is this. Because of this largess there are hundreds of applications that you can use to access Twitter or data mine Twitter. Here are a few of the available applications.

1. Twitpic-this application allows a user to easily upload pictures to Twitter. This is especially helpful for businesses that are marketing new products, or want to set your Twitter site apart from all others. www.twitpic.com
2. TweetDeck-this is a desktop and and iPhone application (iPhone available June 2009) that allows you to filter and group tweets, both the user's own and other's tweets. This would be an effective application for a small business to look for new marketing opportunities. www.tweetdeck.com
3. EarthTwit-this is a web based application that you can use to update your location and/or share places on Twitter using Google Earth. This is a wonderful application that a business (especially a small business) could use to mobilize delivery people or monitor sales personnel. And another use could be a parent keeping track of a teenager, which doesn't say too much about trust between the parent and child. www.twitearth.com
4. BallsAndTweets.com-this is a Twitter baseball directory, all things baseball. A fantasy baseball team owner's dream site. www.BallsAndTweets.com
5. Twibes-a website you can use to group Twitter users based on their interests and hobbies. This can be used by businesses for target marketing, research, and many other uses. Not to mention this is a really cool name. www.twibes.com

E2 - Twitter Uses

2009-09-23T20:03:00.004-04:00

Some of the ways a business or organization use Twitter are down right creepy, almost like the George Orwell novel '1984', Big Brother is watching.

Businesses follow what is being said about it on Twitter and respond to the Tweeter to provide customer service or enhance it's image. Businesses that monitor Tweets include Dell, GM, Whole Foods and JetBlue. These businesses have recognized the size of the potential audience and are using this social network to promote the business' brands. Not to mention Twitter is free and can handle an issue when it occurs rather than several months after the fact. However, some people become concerned by a big business following them and may actually turn to a competitor because of Twitter.

Many businesses use Twitter to conduct research both on how it's brands are being used and what the competition is doing. By following customers the business can alert customers to new products, offer coupons, etc. But these companies have to be very careful to not mis-use the trust a of a customer when it allows a business to follow it on a social network.

Small businesses are using Twitter as a marketing tool (and some big businesses too). A customer can follow the corner cafe and it's owner. Twitter is a free network, a business can communicate with customers at little or no cost to tell them about new products, sales, store hours or special events. Because Twitter is more of a person-to-person application than a business-to-business one. This means that a customer is more likely to follow the cafe owner than the business.

These are only two of the many ways a business can use a social network like Twitter. Businesses and organizations alike use Twitter to push information out to followers (or potential followers), whether this is information such as the news, or information about upcoming events.
But businesses have to be very careful not to over saturate the market with stuff and need to have a plan on what the goal of the tweets will be whether it is marketing, customer service, or research.

However, businesses have to be very careful about how and when they use Twitter, or any social network. They have to use this powerful tool carefully and wisely. Tips for a business in using Twitter include:
Know what you want to say and be concise because Twitter allows only 140 characters.
Don't Tweet too much or too little. It is important to find out what the magic number of
tweets might be so that the potential audience will reap the benefits intended
Learn how to use the Twitter search functions, this will become your friend in using the
the data available in Twitter.
Don't worry about followers. This is like the movie 'Field of Dreams', if you build it they will
come.
Look at the tweets, sort what you find, and then tweet some more.

E1 - Twitter

2009-09-23T19:25:00.003-04:00

Setting up a Twitter account was extremely easy. I have a unique last name so I didn't have to go through several iterations trying to find a user name. Thank goodness for that. Then I went to the Help page and was a bit disappointed by what was there. I like to have help topics that detail the whys and hows of whatever the Help topics cover. But I did learn a few things about Twitter and how it works.

Things I learned from Twitter Help
1. There is more than one way to find a person on Twitter. You can search by: a name; something you are interested in such as a movie or hobby; a location; or a company name. If you want to search by location, you can search for people within a certain distance of a specific location.
2. You can enhance the chance of someone finding your Twitter entry by adding a hashtag to the beginning of the word you want a search to hit upon. For example, if I want search engines or other Tweeters to hit on the word appraisal, I would type #appraisal.
3. There are limits to the number of Tweets you can have, these are called follow limits. You are limited to: 1,000 updates a day, 250 total direct messages (sort of an instance message) per day, or 150 API requests per hour. Twitter does this to stabilize the environment and hopefully, enhance reliability.
4. You can block someone from viewing your Tweets and from sending you messages providing your profile is public rather than private.
5. There are several things that you can't do in Twitter and they are adamant about these two things.
A. Domain squatting-this means you snag a name such as ChevyCars when you don't have
anything to do with GM or Chevrolet.
B. Impersonation-this means you have the Twitter name of ChevyCars and you say you
are GM.

Cloud Computing and PCI Compliance

2009-09-23T15:35:00.002-04:00

I get emails from various sources that relate to our MIT program. I received the newsletter below from a vendor we use and I thought it was timely since we had a class presentation on Cloud Computing.

TrustWave News Letter

News and Analysis

On the Horizon: Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has, of late, been a popular buzzword in the IT and business communities, largely because it is an inexpensive way to increase IT resources. IDC, an analyst and research firm, predicts that spending on IT cloud services will hit $42 billion by 2012. As more businesses look to adopt cloud computing services, more questions are going to arise. Not only about what kind of services can cloud computing offer and is it as cost effective as purported, but also more focused questions like those pertaining to security and compliance.

What is "cloud computing"?

Cloud computing is generally the use of hosted, Internet-accessible servers for a variety of computing needs. It can be dynamically scalable and is usually a virtualized resource. Cloud computing is primarily used in four categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Virtualization Technology. SaaS is a model of software deployment where an application is licensed for use as service on demand. PaaS is when a company uses another company to host all of their applications. IaaS is a computer infrastructure delivered in a virtual environment. Virtualization Technology is the ability to transform on-premise data centers into their own clouds. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Citrix and Salesforce.com are just a few company's offering some or all of these cloud computing services.

Cloud computing is, so far, very cheap. By "renting" computer usage from a third-party provider, companies avoid capital expenditure. Cloud computing services are typically "pay for what you use," which is ideal for organizations that may have one or two busy months (e.g., holiday season) and need a larger platform just for that time of the year. To purchase cloud computing services, all one may need is a credit card. For example, The New York Times took its archive dating from 1851 to 1922 representing more than 15 million articles, and put this fully searchable content "into the cloud" using Amazon's cloud services.

What does cloud computing mean for PCI DSS Compliance?

The cost savings a company achieves with cloud computing could potentially be offset by additional security measures that might be necessary. Debate is ongoing as to whether cloud computing services are able to meet regulatory compliance requirements. No hard rules or standards currently exist, although the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a non-profit organization promoting best practices for providing security assurance with cloud computing, has issued an ongoing "Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing." Some of CSA's best practice recommendations for compliance with payment card transactions include:

Classify data and systems to understand compliance requirements
Understand data locations, in particular the copies of data that are made and how they are controlled
Maintain a right to audit on demand as your regulatory mandates and business needs may change rapidly
Perform external risk assessments, including a Privacy Impact Assessment

However, while these recommendations may be valid, it should be noted that the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has not issued formal guidelines for cloud computing as it pertains to payment card applications or data.

Cloud computing in practice

Several companies offer resizable and configurable compute capacity, paid for by the hour or in multi-year terms. While cost and ease of use are attractive to many businesses, cloud computing may not automatically meet enterprise compliance requirements. Cloud computing systems are not inherently PCI DSS compliant, and storing sensitive credit card payment information on such systems can lead to compliance and other risks.

In a recent article at Data Center Knowledge, Amazon provided information into the issue of compliance and cloud computing, reaffirming that PCI DSS compliance is dependent on how the merchant uses solutions such as cloud computing. Reaching out to customers to address compliance concerns, Amazon spokesperson Kay Kinton stated, "Under the PCI Data Security Standard, merchants regardless of their size are independently responsible for complying with PCI when they collect, process or store credit card information. When using a shared hosting service, like AWS, where the merchant controls what credit card information touches the service, the merchant is responsible for using the services in a manner that permits them to be PCI compliant, such as the proper use of encryption and key management. Therefore, it is possible for a merchant to use Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 and meet PCI compliance standards depending on their specific implementation."

However, other cloud providers are claiming to be certified as PCI DSS compliant, or offer PCI solutions. The authenticity of these claims at this time is not certain; therefore businesses enter into cloud computing at their own risk.

Conclusion

Potential security and compliance problems with cloud computing abound. Because of the ability for a cloud service to reside anywhere in the world, it is difficult to know exactly where the data resides, or even if the cloud provider is meeting the physical security requirements of the PCI DSS. Most cloud providers do not allow onsite auditing either. Cloud computing is an evolving IT experiment, and not necessarily an enterprise-ready environment.

While being PCI DSS compliant does not automatically make a company safe from security threats, it does help businesses ensure appropriate security measures and practices are in place to prevent and deter, as much as possible, security compromises and data theft. Therefore, for the time being, it may be a best practice to not handle any credit card transactions on a cloud infrastructure.

» Trusted News Home

Trustwave Accredited in MasterCard's POS Terminal Security

Trustwave has been certified to perform compliance evaluations against MasterCard's Point-of-Sale Terminal Security (PTS) program. MasterCard's PTS program applies to Point-of-Sale (POS) hardware and applications that transmit card data across an open Internet Protocol (IP) or wireless connection. Payment terminal manufacturers seeking PTS compliance validation can now engage Trustwave to perform evaluations to verify that the POS conforms to standards set forth by MasterCard.

Trustwave News

09/23/2009
Members of Trustwave's SpiderLabs to Deliver Briefings at SecTor

09/22/2009
Trustwave Accredited in MasterCard's Point of Sale Terminal Security

09/16/2009
CUPDATA Validated PCI DSS Compliant by Trustwave

» More Press Releases

Trustwave Events

PCI SSC
September 22-24
Las Vegas, NV

cPanel
October 5-7
Houston, TX

» More Events

Opera Browser

2009-09-18T13:22:00.002-04:00

I was not aware of a browser by Opera until we discussed it in one of our first Internet Technology classes. I did a little half-hearted searching to find out about the company but not much about the the browser. Then in preparation for our guest speaker, Molly Holzschlag, I did a little more searching and I was richly rewarded.

The Opera software developers have done a magnificient job of looking to see what is currently available, listening to end users and trying to anticipate the needs of future users and have developed a browser that delivers. I am (now was) an IE user, don't know why, I guess because it was there. Slow and cluncky come to mind when I think about this particular browser. I probably don't need to also tell you that I am a PC user too, you probably already figured that one out on your own. Since IE was slow I thought all browsers were slow and unreliable. This is not true. The Opera browser offers so much and I especially like the 'Turbo' feature that will compress the data for a more efficient download with a slow download speed is encountered.
As I read more about Opera software and the company behind it I am amazed at the increasing number of people that are downloading the desktop browser software, something like 10 million downloads of the new Opera 10 happened during the first week it was available (in early September 2009). That many people can not be wrong.

And Opera is not your typical company, they have an Education section which wants to help others involved in web, whether in development, teaching, or using the web, to learn about web standards and foster a basis for students to learn about the web and the internt industry. Of course, the Opera employees will discuss Opera products but that is not the motivation for this outreach. The company is truly interesting in providing information on web standards and the rewards of adhering to them.

Opera is the leading supplier of web browser software on mobile devices in the world. And then Molly told us that all mobile devices currently available use the Opera mobile software, not most but all. This is truly awesome. I had no idea. I previously had a Blackberry and was happy but now I know what I was missing and I will ask better questions the next time I go looking for another mobile phone with internet capabilities.

Fifth Week of Class

2009-09-17T15:33:00.002-04:00

It is hard to believe that this week is our fifth week of MIT classes. To say I have come far is an understatement. One of our weekly assignments is to write something about what we have learned relating to our MIT courses during the previous week. I sometimes find this to be extremely difficult to do. And I wonder why. Just about everything we discuss is new to me, especially the technical stuff. I just don't think like a programmer yet. I say yet because I continue to hold out hope that something will "click" in my brain and I will switch from business to technical. When we have discussions in class about a particular programming language, for example, and there are problems or issues I always go through the project management check list in my brain to try to determine where the process "got into the ditch". Was it a rush to market, was it poor requirements gathering, was it cutting costs to the detriment of the product, and it goes on and on. The old adage goes, given enough time, effort and money the product will be perfect; now which one are you willing to forego.

In Tuesday's class we are learning about data management. This past Tuesday, we talked about using databases to track employee productivity. In tracking productivity you have to determine the work effort (how many people will it take to do x job, and how long will it take them to do it), and then allocate the work to the employees based on number of total hours, number of hours per day, etc. This is what I have done in my professional career for the past 15 years. Never once in all this time did I think about the behind the scenes data management needed to track this. Wow, now I have an example in my reality of how a database should perform. It makes a big difference when you can relate something to a personal experience. Before this revelation, database management was this huge thing I was trying to learn all at once, now I understand the process better and am more willing to take tiny bites to conquer it. I am amazed.

This entry in my blog is more journal for me than educational for a reader, and I apologize for this. But sometimes you just have to go where the thoughts take you. I promise to find something more interesting to write about next time.

Editing Wikipedia

2009-09-16T14:30:00.002-04:00

The hardest part of this assignment was determining what subject I have enough knowledge/expertise in that would enable me to edit Wikipedia. After many hours (it seemed like) I finally realized I have knowledge about credit cards, from the issuer and the acquirer perspective. Then came the arduous task of reading what has previously been written and deciding if the content is correct, almost correct, worth the effort to correct, or just plain incorrect. And I am surprised to say, that for the most part the information contained in the article on credit cards is accurate. It is obvious some authors are more knowledgeable than others as evidenced by the author discussing the discount fees (a percentage of the transaction amount) but does not directly address the interchange fees. Basically, a discount fee is assessed to the entity that has the lesser risk in receiving payment and given to the entity with the greater risk in receiving payment. Typically, the acquiring bank pays the fee to the issuing bank because the credit card associations pay the acquirer which is pretty much a guaranteed thing while the issuing bank has to be paid by the customer which, especially in these times, is not guaranteed. An interchange fee is what the card association charges to send the transaction from the merchant to the issuer and back again, sort of a processing and handling fee.

Once I determined what I could/would edit it was a very easy process because my edits were minor. My minor edit was available real time after I clicked the 'Save' button. I had previously registered with Wikipedia so once I logged in I was set to go. I am not brave enough to attempt a major edit even though I feel I have the knowledge base, I don't have the requisite citations to go along with the major edits.

Here are the before and after shots of what I edited.

BEFORE
For each purchase, the bank charges the merchant a commission (discount fee) for this service and there may be a certain delay before the agreed payment is received by the merchant. The commission is often a percentage of the transaction amount, plus a fixed fee. In addition, a merchant may be penalized or have their ability to receive payment using that credit card restricted if there are too many cancellations or reversals of charges as a result of disputes. Some small merchants require credit purchases to have a minimum amount to compensate for the transaction costs.

AFTER
For each purchase, the bank charges the merchant a commission (discount fee) for this service and there may be a certain delay before the agreed payment is received by the merchant. The commission is often a percentage of the transaction amount, plus a fixed fee (interchange rate). In addition, a merchant may be penalized or have their ability to receive payment using that credit card restricted if there are too many cancellations or reversals of charges as a result of disputes. Some small merchants require credit purchases to have a minimum amount to compensate for the transaction costs.

News Aggregation and Its Long Term Effects

2009-09-09T15:27:00.000-04:00

It should be aggravation rather than aggregation. Trying to determine which blogs/feeds to follow can be tedious at times, informative most of the time, and occasionally you run across someone who thinks s/he has something worth reading but it is really just a self-promoting venue. And the only way to determine which feeds are worth your time is to read them.

I think I have chosen some good ones that will help me as I try to learn good web design and web programming. I come from a business background not a technical one, so I like the business aspects of the internet but knowing the technical side is a plus that can do nothing by enhance the business side.

I want (probably need) to move away from my "comfort zone" regarding the business side of internet technology. This means I will have to embrace the technology and run with it. Who knows I might just like it. There are certainly many people in my class who are proficient in this technology, I am in awe at times at the depth of their knowledge and skill. Slowly, I am learning the language so I can join in the discussions.

Internet Technology

2009-08-31T20:54:00.000-04:00

I participated in an internet scavenger hunt last week. I had no idea exactly how it all started. There is so much information and so little time. There is so much to learn regarding the Internet. HTML, Java, XML, and on and on. It is almost overwhelming. Just when I was ready to give up, my HTML code actually worked and I got something to display in my browser. It was so rewarding to actually see something that I coded actually worked! It makes me want to go do something else to see if I can get that to work. It can be addicting.

HTML for a Dummy Like Me

2009-08-26T19:51:00.000-04:00

The HTML tutorials are slow but if you take good notes and don't let the slow going get to you, you will learn HTML. Some times I have lost focus but the tutorials have a replay button I have used quite a few times. I use several of the HTML tags in my job and often times it was just trial and error. But now I actually know what the basic HMTL tags can do. I can't wait to put my new found knowledge to use.

Why start a blog?

2009-08-23T17:17:00.000-04:00

I would not normally consider creating or using a blog. I didn't see the benefit I would receive (isn't it always "what about me"?). However, being a new grad student and wanting to complete course assignments, here I am doing just that, creating and using a blog. I plan to use this blog as a way of tracking my journey through my MIT course work, especially as I learn about the Internet and what opportunities it holds for me and my fellow students. I don't know where this journey will take me, if I will like where I go, if I will even know where I am when I get there, or who will be travelling with me. But, I like to travel so here I go . . .