Article 16 and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Good evening. The is the last news post in this class and I would like to dedicate it to the Piracy and Ethics issue. Can you name the piracy acts ethical? Is it beneficial for society? Let's take a look on the article below.

Article 16. The ethics of Piracy.

http://www.cs.rpi.edu/courses/fall00/ethics/papers/bironj2.html

The article covers 2 cases:

1. Case when a pirate sells software for money.

2. Case when a pirate distributes software for free.

Let's examine each of them.

1)

a) Consider someone who copies an application developed by a large company and decides that this product is way over-priced and should be available for a much lower price. So pirate begins creating and distributing copies of the application at their new, adjusted price. The pirate in this case may think they are ethically right for providing the product at a price that they feel it should be sold at. But the fact that the pirate seeks to profit from the piracy seals off any form of ethical argument for their acts.

b) If a company discovers the existence of a pirate who is selling their product and choose not to take action, how do the ethics now apply? Sometimes it is better for the company financially to allow the pirate to continue than to take an action, but does this make the piracy ethically right?Ethically, the company is also wrong because they are allowing the unethical act of piracy to occur when they are able to take action to stop it. Therefore, in a situation such as this, the act of pirating a product is still an unethical act.

2) The second type of piracy is that in which software is obtained freely. Pirates may override whatever form of copy protection exists and distribute a product free of charge. Probably the premier argument for this type of piracy is that the companies aren’t losing anything. But using the effect of an unethical act to justify it is not a strong argument, therefore this case is unethical in terms of piracy.

So when might this sort of piracy ever be considered ethical? There is at least one case that can be shown, where the piracy is not wholly unethical. Many times, when products are pirated and freely distributed, the users are given the suggestion that if they like the software then they should purchase their own copy.

From my point of view piracy like a phenomenon is wrong. But I would like to remind that piracy industry gives much more opportunities for people, who would never use some kinds of software otherwise. It also creates additional working places and sometimes even a tax source for the government. So is it so harmful like big corporations make us to think?

Individual Assignment no. 5 and News Posting combined.

Question:

How did your group make the decisions? What problems did you encounter in the process? Did your group make decisions in a different way than the whole class did? Why? What kind of information system do you need to design to support such a process of negotiation? Provide a simple hardware/software configuration.

Answer:

As the goal of our group was to establish equal amount of points for which students and we did not have real competition among us (no real benefits and reasons to hide information from each other) we decided to cooperate in full. We chose a person, who volunteered to calculate the optimal points distribution among team members and send him all our personal scores by e-mail. As result during our class meeting we had a table with different alternatives available and amount of scores each of alternative gives to the members. One of the problems was that one of our members had to get very low score in orders others could get high. Or all of the students had to get less or more equal low score, what we did not like too. In order to solve the problem we talked to the professor and realized that we were free to change our conditions and share points like we want. From my point of view it does not make sense as in negotiations you always have some conditions fixed and you have operate instead of them with the better possible option for you. In you case everything was flexible. So, finally we pick the option with the highest possible score and shared our points among each of the members equally to get the highest possible score for everybody. I believe we are the only team who made such a decision - to change completely all the frames of the assignment given - the rest of the teams were flexible only inside the limits of the individual scores given. The reason was - additional hint from the professor and our "boldness" in changing all the conditions without fear to lose possible points.

To make such a decision with the use of informative systems you have to have software or system combining: database available with all necessary data; Microsoft Excel or other program allowing you to create a table and sort the data given; e-mail software allowing you to communicate with other members or another method of communication (phone, VoiP, etc).

News Blog:

As an real example of such a system you can see The Mediator software (http://www.mcn.org/c/rsurratt/conflict.html).

The Mediator promises to find the best possible agreements between two people . The real value of this program lies in the realization that different people have their own idea about how important the issues are or how much the issues are worth. It is possible then to find envy-free agreements in which all parties feel as if they've gotten the best deal. This program will allow you to easily enter the areas of conflict, assign preferences for both parties, and automatically calculate the fair, equitable, and envy-free maximization of those preferences. There is demo version available on the web-site to try it.

Personally I am very skeptical in using negotiations software: as real negotiation is all about persuasion and communicating efficiently (voice recognition and visual presence allow to solve each negotiation 3 times faster), but in some easier events (e-bay bidding, etc.) it can be really efficient.

Comments on classes and Article 14.

Good evening! This week we had all our presentations over and as a member of the last team (B) to finish I am glad it is finally done. The problem only is that I cannot discuss minuses or pluses of my work. Regarding Team A presentation I would like to say that it was a great job, full of offerings and serious scientific graphs. The only my offering for it is always to double check whether the scale and experience of the company, which will implement the solution, allows to use what is recommended. It seemed to me that CRM offered was to complicated for small B&B with 8 rooms of facilities.

Article 14. QuickStudy: System Development Life Cycle

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=71151&pageNumber=1

Audio version: http://a1448.g.akamai.net/7/1448/25138/v0001/compworld.download.akamai.com/25137/techcast/computerworld-techcast-sdlc.mp3 or http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/4452 (see media player picture)

The article above was very interesting for me as it strengthened the points the professor had mentioned in the class about system development stages. To summarize: system development process changes over times: before it was a writing code for solving a problem or automating a procedure, now it is much more complicated process.

There were several types of system described starting from the oldest to newest. They are:

1The waterfall system;

2) The fountain model;

3) The spiral model;

4) The rapid prototyping;

5) The incremental model.

The author offer to use the synchronize and stabilize method, which combines the advantages of the spiral model with technology for overseeing and managing source code. This method allows many teams to work efficiently in parallel. The approach was defined by David Yoffie of Harvard University and Michael Cusumano of MIT. For me it seems very reasonable to use new types of system developments models in response to the rapid changes in the society requirements. The last model seems to be very interesting. The companies, which used this method (Microsoft and Netscape) also give it more weight in consideration.

Comments on classes and Article 13.

Hello. Sorry for the late posting. This week presentation about Time Warner Cable was very interesting, but it did not reveal all the possible opportunities of company's expansion. It is not minus as teams agreed on exact problems to discuss, but to mention that there are some more interesting ways of expansion could be useful. But, anyway, I will mention one of them later in the article analysis. It was also an interesting idea for cable companies to merge together to fulfill one very expensive project. Even though some of my classmates doubt that I believe it is possible. We can see the example of railroad companies, which cooperated in building railroad centuries ago. For one company it was impossible option. But lets' come back to Time Warner expansion possibilities.

Article. Time Warner Cable Tries Business IPTV.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=135542&page_number=1&site=
This article was interesting for me as it talked about expanding into business user sector, which was not mentioned during the presentation. And it is also mentioned Internet TV, which does not require creating separate internal television network. So, Time Warner moved toward business users offering them special BusinessLink.tv, which pipes 10 news channels to the PCs of business customers via high-speed cable modem connections. It is offered only in New York and New Jersey so far, an area with 1.4 million subscribers total. Time Warner Cable Business Class is using a combination of cable modem connections and IP multicast to deliver the service, which requires a "core" LAN bandwidth capacity of 4 Mbit/s. The service is reliable, secure, and provides up-to-the-minute live news without hampering the existing IT infrastructure." I believe that this market segment will develop very fast and rather promising for the company to maintain. Constant and updated information is key factor for each business today and to get it fast and easy without leaving work place and disconnecting from working PC is crucial for modern business people.

Individual Assignment no. 4

Information aggregation.

Suggest two other business cases in which this method can be used to collect information. What problems do you see besides the ones mentioned in the Background information section? What kind of information system do you need to design to support this method of collecting information? Provide a simple hardware/software configuration.

Answer:
There are a lot of different applications possible for using Information aggregation methods. The ones I found most interesting are:

1. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/390/1

One of the most interesting economics technologies that has not yet been widely deployed is the information aggregation market (infomart). These markets support open trading on “proposition bets”, wagers on which of two or more outcomes will occur. Such markets can continuously predict the future with more accuracy than opinion polls. The most famous of the infomarts are the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEMs), which trade various kinds of securities. Winner-take-all markets pay $1 for the winning outcome and nothing to losers so the trade price in pennies represents the percent chance the proposition will be true. Vote share markets pay according to the vote share of two or more outcomes. These two types of securities can be used to answer most types of questions. Adopting informarts for space could potentially lead to space colonization years earlier at a far lower total cost than continuing with poor forecasting leading into more blind allies.

2. http://lessig.org/blog/2005/07/extremism_and_information_aggr.html

Using of Information Aggregation method allowed to discover that: In many controversial areas (eg, affirmative action, campaign finance, sex discrimination, disability discrimination, environmental regulation, and more), Republican appointees show especially conservative voting patterns when they're sitting on 3-judge panels that consist only of Republican appointees. So too for Democratic appointees: They're far more liberal, in their voting patterns, when sitting with two fellow Democratic appointees, than when sitting on a panel with at least one Republican appointee. In other words, Republican appointees look more conservative when they sit only with fellow Republican appointees, and Democratic appointees look more liberal when they sit only with fellow Democratic appointees.

The problems and requirements for this method are complex and they are shown in the pictures below. If the system meets all the requirements below, you can say that the software will work as needed and correct results will be obtained.

Source: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/patterns/bi/select-application-topology.html

One of the software that can be used is i-Fetch. i-Fetch is a feed reader and information aggregation program that enables you to read various RSS feeds on your desktop, so that you can get information from various sources on a single interface.

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/i-fetch.htm

Comments on classes and Article 12.

Hello. In talking about UHC presentations I would like to mention that they were very good in revealing today problems of Health Care system both for the patients and the doctors and I liked some of the solutions offered. Especially interesting for me was Ranking system problem as it had huge effects on efficient physicians' work and patients feedback. The article below will touch upon this problem too.

Article 12. INSURERS RANK PHYSICIANS: WHO IS IT REALLY GOOD FOR?
http://docwhisperer.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/physician-rankings-who-are-they-really-good-for/
As it was very nice described in the article the goal of creating ranking systems for physicians was to provide customers with additional information on people, who treat them and the level of service. “People don’t want to go to a movie or buy a book or buy a car or go to a restaurant without some ability to assess value for dollar. ” Such ranking systems work more than in 100 insurance industry markets or regions across the country. The idea seems to be great, but lets see what is wrong with it and why doctors, who are one day in the top ratings are deleted from the network the following day. Is it possible that their level of service changes so rapidly?
The main disadvantages are:
1. Data often contain errors and that doctors often lack the ability to correct them;
2. The effort is more about cutting costs than raising quality;
3. Doctors are held accountable for whether patients exercise, take their medications or follow their prescribed regimens;
4. Disparate ratings can confuse patients and cause turbulence in group practices and much more.
In my opinion before creating such ranking the insurance company have to double check several times how the system is working because it is very easy to ruin somebody's reputation in a moment, but it takes hundreds of years to build it after!!

Comments on classes and Article 11.

Hello. As from this week we have our projects running I would like to leave some feedback on information received and new CIS applications in real life learned. First two teams discussing Duane Reade made a great job in company and industry analysis. Some of the solutions to the offered problems were really interesting too. Especially I liked one of the teams' offers of micro-marketing - personalized advertising and self-efficient carts, with the help of which you can check out without any lines and other payment complications. I believe this would be a great solution for improving customer service in Duane Reade.

Article 11. Shopping Cart Concierge
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/shopping-cart-concierge

The article above gives more details about self-service shopping card discussed during the presentation. Integrated into the shopping cart handle, Concierge is an interactive touch-screen computer that uses a wireless in-store network. It can assist with self-serve checkouts and provide shoppers with a wealth of information. It offers the following features:
Personalized Account recognition; Product Scanning; Self Check-Out; In-Store Cart Tracking; Dynamic Advertising; Product Finder; Interactive Shopping List; Recipes. I believe this new cart is really great and will save a lot of time both for the stores and shoppers. It will also keep shoppers more loyal to the stores as the carts will provide them with all personalized information needed and hints necessary. As a shopper myself I am looking forward to using such cars and sure that it will be very good experience.

Comments on Classes and Article 10.

Hello. It was really interesting to participate in the auctions interaction assignment. I did not even know that auctions can be conducted in so different ways: Dutch auction, English auction, etc. And each of the auctions had their pluses and minuses. The thing that surprised me most was that the most imperfect is the auction we use all the time, English one. It is so easy to make secret signs and agree with other participants during it.

Article 10. Build A Niche Store - A Review

http://www.article-tips.com:80/auctions/build-a-niche-store/1976

This article was very interesting for me as it offers using eBay auctions in a little bit different way. To be exact - you can earn additional money using e-bay without having to bid, place an auction or go to the post-office and send your merchandize later. The only thing you have to do is to use the software offered - Build a Niche Store, which enables you to access and sell eBay auction merchandise on your own site, and pocket a commission after the sale was made. Let’s see how it works.
The software allows you to have live eBay auctions running on your site, constantly updating and targeted precisely to the theme of your site. To establish this you have to add a bit of code to your site: you need to be able to create a MYSQL database, but the instruction provided with software makes this abundantly easy. This method works by adding a live selection of auction merchandise to your site from a category you choose, and when the auction ends and there is a sale, eBay shares up to 65% of their revenue from the sale with you.
Advantages: This is an easy way to monetize the sites and diversify the income, simply by providing your website visitors with current, targeted offerings they may well be interested in.The software offered does not require a great deal of effort on your part, thus helping you increase your site's relevance in the eyes of the search engines, and consequently bringing you even more traffic.
Disadvantages: It is difficult to integrate the software into the look of your site.
So, it depends on you whether you want to have an additional income using eBay auctions or just to use it in the old, but well-proved way. Anyway, for me it was pretty interesting as it was another way of using eBay auctions, not participating in it directly.

P.S. Dear Professor, sorry for the delayed posting. I could not do it earlier this week.

Comments on Classes and Article 9.

Hello. My interest in the previous lecture of The Supply Chain Systems was really great as in the past I was purchase manager and cooperated with a companies, operating such a systems. I can't say that I learned a lot of new things from this class, but I would like to leave some comments instead. The problem of such systems (from my personal experience) as that they are firm and can not be manipulated easily. Sometimes it is very hard for the employee to change the product price in the system or to add some additional comments, which should be seen on the freight documents. These systems do not include legislation differences and when country goes abroad it becomes a huge problem - the minor change in the shipment document required by the payer takes several days and if it is ignored it results in paying extra and pretty big amount during customs clearance. And the response you get from the supplier is - "Sorry. It's our system. We can't change anything".

Article 9. Supply Chain Integration Solutions
http://www.scmnews.com/scmnews-66-20061013SupplyChainIntegrationSolutions.html

It does not matter if you are a vendor, supplier, manufacturer, dealer, service supplier or customer, the cost of freight either impacts the amount you charge, the amount you are reimbursed or the price you pay. And this is the most important part of Supply Chain, which should be always carefully analyzed and improved.

The article above gives us short history overview of Supply Chain improvements and current situation. And it is very interesting to realize that the following development improved the performance of Supply Management Systems:

1) The famous Pony Express operating from April 1860 to November 1861.

2) Electromagnet, telegraph and telephone discovery.

3) Introduction of Consolidated Freight, Low Rates and Speed principle.

The historical development of them brought us to the modern Supply Chain Integration Systems, which are focused not on moving products more quickly, or choosing the most economical method of transportation, or the geography, but on the task for business to move items less. Next generation of Supply Chain Integration utilizes network connectivity with multiple vendors to reduce freight, transportation, geographical boundaries and in some cases ownership. IT development is focused on integrating partners in collective, secure and collaborative networks for shared visibility and planning. Data is moved more effectively and efficiently than products, parts or parcels. Ownership transfers when orders transmit, and inventory is managed in a manner that mitigates movement. Vendor Managed Inventory can be achieved simultaneously with multiple vendors and numerous customer partners through sophisticated impartial third party integrators. The exchange of products and purchases can be replaced by a data exchange, creating total cost reductions that benefit the bottom line.

The best example of the company, which implements such a Supply Chain Integration System is E-Bay, procuring supply in direct proportion to demand. I believe that this alternative approach has a profound base and should be used in future for all the companies. It allows not only to save resources for the exact company, but the whole society in general.

P.S. Sorry. I know that this post is very long, but I intentionally leave it like it is. I like this topic and would like to show you my opinion.

Individual Assignment 3.

Find and compare several internet telephony services.

I was very lucky to find one article describing all advantages and disadvantages of the problem above. That is why I’ll give a short summary, which will be my reply to the assignment. Also I would like to mention that I use internet phone service by myself and I am very satisfied with it. It’s a great opportunity. I use Skype and the only minus – the quality of connection depends on the Internet speed. So if speed is low it’s almost impossible to talk. It is not a problem for well-developed countries, but a serious one for others – such as Ukraine for example, where not all the people have access to high-speed internet.

Ok. So let’s talk about the internet telephone service.
An Internet phone is nothing more than an inconsequential-looking electronic adapter with blinking lights on the front and a few jacks in the back. Plug a normal telephone into its phone jack, then plug the adapter directly into your router, which is hooked up to a broadband Internet connection. Some Internet phone carriers also let you make calls through your computer; others, like Skype, require it. But the genius of most Internet phones is that your computer isn't involved at all.
Advantages: Increasing competition from tech upstarts like Vonage and anxious traditionalists like Verizon has led to insanely low prices for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service (as low as 20 per month). Competition has also led to a development of additional new Web features, many of which have spread to most carriers.
The downside of VoIP is that it's not real phone service. You may pay fewer taxes, but you don't automatically get, say, 911 service, and the thing won't work in a blackout. Reliability also is not always up to land-line snuff. Sometimes there's no dial tone, your outgoing calls don't go through, or the other party can't hear you.
To find out if VoIP is really mature enough to replace your land line, there is a rating below given, which is based on series of tests on seven internet phone services.
Factors included in the test: sound quality, reliability, international scale, portability, bells and whistles, number selection option.
Results:

Source: Smooth Operators. Which Internet phone service is best? By Sam Schechne, http://slate.com/id/2121742/r

Comments on Classes and Article 8.

Good afternoon. The Virtual Reality class was really great! I found out what the real status of this technology is for now and that, in fact, it is really far from imagined by me and other people (first new thing). I also got the idea of the reason why this technology is not so advanced in comparison with others. I understood that due to detailed explanation of our professor about huge number of data, which should be stored and used to get one simple move in the Virtual Reality (second new thing to know).

Article 8. Virtual Game Helps Children Escape Realities Of Burn Unit.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009101818.htm

This article has really impressed me! I believe the example in it is the best humanity example, for which such an advanced technology may be used. And I'm really glad that it happens in our time with our children. The well known fact is that there is strong connection between anxiety and pain. So, in order to decrease pain we have to lower anxiety level to the minimum. The best way for it is to distract a person in a real pain from what he sees and expects. And really good idea in such a situation, as shown in the article, is Virtual Reality games. As we all know it really distracts you and takes into completely different world of feelings and emotions. For the children in pain in the real world it is a great relief as cleaning and treating procedures are long and very painful. As we can see from the article, even though the Program started in May of this year, it has already brought good results: "Burn nurses report several patients have noticeably improved in terms of their ability to tolerate dressing changes". And even a separate research was launched to compare the results of virtual reality pain distraction with traditional distraction techniques, such as watching television, listening to music, counting and deep breathing.

Comments on Classes and Article 7.

Hello. I would like to mention that this week classes were very interesting for me as they gave me some additional information about my individual assignments. The new things for me were: a) that mobile advertisers are ready to give you additional benefits for you to allow them to send advertising t your phone directly; b) I understood better how user generated content is working - before I had an experience with such an advertising online and wondered how advertisers do it now I know.

Article. ADwords: What Google is not Telling You.
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1298918851&Fmt=6&clientId=8851&RQT=309&VName=PQD

This article gives us more details about pour class conversation, namely how Google places advertiser' ads online. The article confirms that basic assmption "the higher the bid the higher your place online" is wrong. It also confirms our summary that Google is interested in ads quality and its profits. So it takes into consideration the following additional factors: search history; location; previous performance; match; number of ads to be shown, etc. In general the article gives to advertiser serious reasoning why he should be interested to improve quality of his job and how it will affect his profits in future. I believe it’s fair for all of us – Google, advertisers and consumers.

Comments on Classes and Article 6.

Good evening. This week 2 lectures on Databases and ERM programs were very interesting for me as the knowledge received can be easily applied in the real life. The new term for me was database warehouse - it was really interesting and useful to learn that these databases include kits of statistical programs, which are really necessary when you work with a huge amount of information. The second new term for me was ERM itself - but as I found out later I knew about existence of such programs and even wanted to learn one of them -SAP, as a lot of multinational companies use it and require their prospective employees to know basic features.

Article 6. Paradise By The Dashboard Light.
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/erp/article.php/3702781

The article above gives us advantages of an improved version of Act 2008 software, which is small business customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation software from Sage Software. The most important feature of this software, which previously was available only to enterprise-level products, is dashboard. This option allows a user to see "charts, graphs and tables that give at-a-glance information about current activities and sales opportunities". Sage has provided six customizable dashboard components, which are: my Schedule At-a-Glance; top 10 Opportunities; Activities by User; opportunities by User: closed Sales to Date. These dashboards may be customized as per user's requirements if needed. There are plenty of other useful options that are described in the article, but I would like only to summarize the most important feature with the following comparison: "Imagine trying to drive a car without dashboard displays. You’d never know how fast you were going, when you were running out of gas or if the car was overheating. " The same for the business - and especially for small business - as it is usually forgotten in the fight for big companies' profits. This software cares about the most important issues that help to improve user's business at a relatively low price (see the article) and this is the most important advantage of its performance.

Individual Assignment no. 2

Question:

Are the sponsored search ads on Google or Yahoo a type of informative or persuasive advertising or both? Give examples of ads that fall into each of these types and an ad that falls into both types. Why is it important to make a distinction between these two types?
Answer:
In order to identify what type of advertising are sponsored search ads on Google or Yahoo we must to define the categories informative or persuasive advertising of first. To do it we need to mention first that both of them belong to Product-Oriented Advertising, where most advertising spending is directed toward the promotion of a specific good, service or idea. In most cases the goal of product advertising is to clearly promote a specific product to a targeted audience. Marketers can accomplish this in several ways from a low-key approach that simply provides basic information about a product (informative advertising) to blatant appeals that try to convince customers to purchase a product (persuasive advertising) that may include direct comparisons between the marketer’s product and its competitor’s offerings (comparative advertising).
From the definition above we can clearly see that sponsored search ads on Google or Yahoo belong to informative type of advertising as they just give you the general information about the problem which interests the prospective customer in the given time (see example in the link – sponsored ads: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=The+Best+Diet+Pills+for+Sale&btnG=Search or the picture below as ads change all the time).

Sponsored search ads are limited to a number of key words and expressions on the screen and they can’t provide you enough persuasive information for making a choice at this point. But if the customer follows the advertised link to the advertiser’s web-site here he will be able to see persuasive type of advertising, located on the website (see example in the link – http://www.phenocerin.com/google/index.html?gclid=CMeOvKKt844CFQhtFQodpFuVEA).
I believe that it is not right to claim that sponsored search ads on Google or Yahoo can be of pure persuasive type, but they can have some elements of persuasive type as shown in the first link (the last sponsored ads, stating “25lbs in 30 Days- No Diet”. It tries to persuade the customer that its kind of product has superior features and the web-site itself gives more persuasive information later as shown in example 2. So we can assume that some Sponsored search ads fall under both categories simultaneously.
From my point of view the importance of distinction between above mentioned types of advertising is in way how they affect customers and how customers react on them. If informative advertising is not considered like advertising, but like a help for the customer looking for a specific product, then persuasive advertising is perceived like subjective and annoying ads until the customer specifically looks for it. As those types of advertising also have different purpose (to give information for attracting the customer (informative) and to persuade to buy (persuasive)) they can be regulated by different way both by government and company legislation. Different price strategies for allocation of such types of ads may apply too.

Comments on the classes and ARTICLE 5.

Good afternoon. From Mobile Communication and Database lectures the most interesting and unknown things for me were: 1) New possibilities of connecting PC and TV work and Iphone structure and features; 2) Existence of different database types and their drawbacks. I was also surprised that Microsoft Access can not be classified as database at all.

Article 5. Cell Phones of the Future

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/cellphones/index_01.htm

Please, notice - there are different 8 slides in the article - each on separate page).


The article shows us that future cell phones add more and more different functions and, in my opinion, they loose the possibility of being called the “phones” at all as their main function becomes unknown. You can watch movies on them (see the last slide), use as the jewelry investment or wristwatch, etc. Soon anything available in our imagination will be performed in these small devices. It is very interesting and exiting. Especially if we remind ourselves that 20 years ago most of the people could not even imagine that they would use phone connection without wire attached to it. With such technology development speed we just forgot about these times with great pleasure.

Comments on the classes and ARTICLE 4.

Hello. The two new things from Software and Networking lectures for me were: 1) I didn't know that the device, which transforms analog signal into digital, is modem. What about when modem is used with digital phone lines? It still has to be present there. Does it have some other purposes then? 2) I knew about existence of client/server model of software communication, but never knew about other types possible.

Article 4.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201808208&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News
From the first sight this article does not seems to have a lot in common with our Internet topic. But let's take a deeper look on it. 20% of people claim that "they spend less time having sex because they're too busy online". Is not it horrifying? These simple data show us how deep Internet has penetrated in our life. Most of modern people even don't see any difference between online and offline life. Moreover some of them even replaced their offline life - they do most of the reading, shopping and even communicating online. I agree that it is easier. I do it by myself. I talk with my parents online, but I can't do it different way as they live in Ukraine. I'm really scared that in close future this "piece of hardware" can replace all the real human communication. Does it really have such abilities? For me - it does not. I do and will always believe that nothing can be better than sitting with your close friends together at one table and talking. It is the most valuable thing for me. What about you? Have you already exchange sex for Internet? :-))

Individual Assignment no. 1

Google AdWords is a quick and simple way to purchase highly targeted cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, regardless of user’s budget. AdWords ads are displayed along with search results on Google, as well as on search and content sites in Google’s growing ad network, including AOL, EarthLink, HowStuffWorks, & Blogger. With more than 200 million searches on Google each day and even more searches and page views on our ad network, exact Google AdWords ads reach a vast audience.
When user creates a Google AdWords ad, he chooses keywords for which his ad will appear and specify the maximum amount he is willing to pay for each click. The user only pay when someone clicks on his ad.
There's no minimum monthly charge -- just a $5 activation fee.

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant, text-based, un-obtrusive Google AdWords™ ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your users are looking for on user’s site, he'll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance his content pages.
Simply put, Google provides the user with AdSense HTML ad code to place on the web pages on which he wants to display AdWords ads. Then, Google takes care of the rest by leveraging award-winning and proprietary Google search and page-ranking technologies to deliver relevant AdWords ads to those content pages.
The user gets paid whenever someone on his site clicks on one of the AdSense ads. Advertisers can also bid to appear on user’s site on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis. Both CPC and CPM bids compete in Google’s AdWords program to ensure that user optimizes his ad revenue.

Google’s income from Advertising:
($ in thousands, except per share amounts)

Revenue 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007Q1 2007Q2
(unaudited)
Total ads. revenues 410,915 1,420,663 3,143,288 6,065,003 10,492,628 3,627,450 3,838,341
Y/Y Growth rate 514% 246% 121% 93% 73% 63% 58%
Q/Q Growth rate NA NA NA NA NA 14% 6%

Source: http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html
P.S. Sorry tried several times, but can't import chart here.

My opinion is that both these programs are the most beneficial for small and middle-sized companies. One if the reason is: the search for the products usually is done per key word, which is the name of the product – not brand. So companies with unknown brands (small and middle-sized) and not expensive products are searched. If people need product of a big sized company they go straight to its website as its repeats the name of the company and usually well-know.

The most important difference from TV advertising is in customer orientation of the services provided. The users will be offered the only type of advertising that they are looking for (not the whole range of different products like in TV advertising). The second advantage is that advertisers can limit their target auditorium to specified location (state, city, etc.) when is much harder to establish in TV advertising.

Comments on the classes and ARTICLE 3.

Good afternoon! Today I would like to mention 2 new things learned from my classmates Hardware presentation and Software lecture. The first term I heard first is Virtualization, which "includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource." (Wikipedia source). The second new thing for me was the difference between machine languages of first and last generation, namely that you can understand the languages of last generation as they consist of plain English words.

ARTICLE 3.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9035459&intsrc=hm_list

As you can see from the article a new edition of Sports software - MagicSports 4.0 - was introduced targeting especially sports fans, who are too busy to watch every game, but still want to know all the details of favorite events. The software can analyze 4 types of games - football (new), soccer, baseball and sumo wrestling and using several special techniques (like four-star classification) creates 20 minutes final video. It offers number of convenient options like watching the game from the favorite point or moving back and forward, editing the game and creating own video, which can be shared with friends. The program is user friendly and easy to install.

Comments on the classes and ARTICLE 2.

Hello! Today I would like to share my impression on the two last classes and tell you what was the most interesting for me. The first thing that I found new and pretty simple is the approach of solving of every kind of the problem from IT side. In the beginning it seems for you impossible to solve some sorts of issues, but if you classify them first as per categories given and then just apply one of the possible solution choices it becomes much easier. The second thing, which was new for me, is availability of different types of computers (huge classification) even though some of the names mean almost the same and you can't see the difference between them from the first sight.

ARTICLE 2.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20070904234014.html

You can see the direct connection of this article with class topic "Hardware" as it is one of the "input" devices as per general rule. But if to take a look on this keyboard I believe we can also say that it is "output" device as well: "Specially designed software will be able to change images on the colour screens depending on the program running." So it will give you some information depending on the task. This keyboard has already found its place in the market, but I personally don't see a lot of application for it. And what about you?

Week 1 article.

Some lessons from dot-com crisis
Birmingham Business Journal - December 28, 2001 by Scott Clark

Aside from creating and selling several technology-driven businesses, in my spare time I write books, give workshops and teach as an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa.
A scant 18 months ago, many of my students were still eager to create dot-com companies, having read about the millions raised in venture capital overnight and the soaring value of dot-com stocks.

Even some business academics became hypnotized by the opportunity. One of these, Lyle Bowlin, from the University of Northern Iowa, was profiled last year in a Wall Street Journal article. According to The Journal, Bowlin raised $90,000 for a book-selling dot-com business operated out of his home (http://www.positively-you.com/) competing with Amazon.com and barnesandnoble. com. He received glowing write-ups in The New York Times and Time magazine, quickly followed by guest spots on the morning talk-show circuit. Predictably, orders shot up from $2,000 per month to $50,000 per month.
The company had not planned for such growth and was constantly behind the power curve, soliciting friends and their families to help pack and ship books rather than focus on profits and strategies.
Management apparently abandoned sound business principles and assumed its Web-based business was a bottomless well of increasing orders, even though it was still losing money. It's not hard to imagine what happened next.
Because of a combination of several factors (which may have included lack of a plan, lack of profits, lack of financial controls, lack of management oversight, inappropriately high salaries, high expenses without controls, inadequate software and/or hardware to cope with growth and/or competition), the company ran out of both money and customers, subsequently fading into oblivion.
In all fairness, Bowlin was just one of many dot-com dreamers who started companies to ride the wave of prosperity rather than focusing on plans, profits or fulfillment. Large businesses succumbed to the lure of easy money as well: Remember the disastrous Christmas of 1999 when Toys 'R Us created toysrus.com without focusing on fulfillment, thus failing to deliver thousands of Web-ordered toys in time for Christmas?
The Internet bubble finally burst in the spring of 2000. When the smoke finally cleared, the Nasdaq plunge (and its accompanying dot-com bloodbath) had erased 62 percent of the Nasdaq's value, which plummeted from a high of 4,260 to a low of 1,620 12 months later.
In retrospect, the dot-com bubble was fueled by greed, rather than by sound business practices. Aspiring Internet entrepreneurs thought they could bypass the long haul to success and achieve instant wealth just by hanging out a dot-com shingle. No need to focus on profits or management or order fulfillment or customer satisfaction; just launch the business and watch the money flow in.
They learned too late this simple truth: If more money flows out of the company than flows in, eventually the coffers will be empty and the business will die.
As a result of the dot-com rubble, today's crop of aspiring entrepreneurs has a much more realistic picture of what it takes to start a business. The few who are interested in dot-com businesses are focused on sound business principles rather than on pipe dreams and bandwagons as they assemble their plans.
So the good news from the dot-com crash is that fledgling entrepreneurs (and their investors) once again realize there is no quick path to easy street. As a result, most of today's new crop of entrepreneurs are launching businesses based on sound business principles.

Visit the Company Doctor's Web site (www.saclark.com) for additional information or to share your ideas.

Week 1 article comments.

To tell you the truth I did not know a lot about the dot-com crisis before the class. So it was very interesting for me to learn all these new old facts. And as you can see from the article the reasons we named in the class are almost the same here, namely: "lack of a plan, lack of profits, lack of financial controls, lack of management oversight, inappropriately high salaries, high expenses without controls, inadequate software and/or hardware to cope with growth and/or competition". Is not it excited? I believe this is important - to learn something and to know that you do it by yourself and right.