Blog 7.1: Threats and Security

Threats to our information network or site are viruses, outside intruders, employees/consultants, natural disasters, and links to outside business contacts.  Viruses are programs that are for malicious intent and it could slow down our site or create harm to it.  Outside intruders/hackers are people that could alter our information such as prices, they could create something that would make our cabins cheaper for them, and so on.  Employees/consultants could unintentionally make errors of our information or they could use that for malicious intent.  Natural disasters/accidents are things that we cannot predict such as animals eating our cables, something from the ceiling falling and destroying our computers, and fire damage.  Finally, links to outside business contacts is a threat to us because they could try to find out how we make our money(family secret) and they could rip-off our business plan.

Before you get worried, we have technological safeguards for the things described above.  Physical access restrictions takes care of hackers and other people by authentication of use of a password, photo ID, and so on.  Firewalls were designed to detect intrusion and prevent unauthorized access.  Encryption takes care of links to business contacts by coding our messages and allowing only our employees to encrypt and decrypt information.  Virus monitor and protection takes care of viruses by detecting viruses before they do serious damage to our site.  Finally, Audit-control software such as time restriction access and accesses only files required for work.

Blog 6.1 Pillars of 2.0

The four pillars of Web 2.0 are Utilizing the Web as a platform, Harnessing Collective Intelligence, Leveraging the Data, and Implementing Innovative Web Capabilities.

Utilizing the Web as a platform standardizes the Web for any person to be able to use the Web through a browser and an Internet connection.  Our company needs this so people will be to access our site as easily as possible.

Harnessing Collective Intelligence enables users to contribute on a site, thus improving the content of a site.  Our company would use this by creating a site that displays a review of our cabins and allows people to post comments and ask questions which would be answered by us or our other customers.

Leveraging the Data is using powerful databases to make decisions.  Our company would use this by using our special database to extract information to determine which cabins sell better and what needs to be improved.

Implementing Innovative Web Capabilities is key to having a competitive edge over our competitors.  Our company would incorporate this by introducing widgets (programs with usually a single purpose) such as registering for a new deal with a countdown, mash-ups, and so on.

Intranet Diagram: 5.3

Hello again!  Today we are going to talk about how the Intranet works and about each part of the intranet Diagram.  Basically, the Intranet consists of a private network using web technology to send secure information within an organization.  So technically, it is a Business-to-Employee Commerce type. 

The diagram starts with the client which is the company on a LAN sending information through an e-mail server, which is a router.  The router then sends it through a firewall and through the Virtual Private network (VPN).  It is then received by a client within our company and to send information back, it has to do the same thing that we did.

We, as a company, can benefit and use this because of the amazing applications that make up the Intranet.  Those applications include: Training, Personalized Internet pages, Application Integration, Online Entry of Info, Real-Time Access, and Collaboration.

What our employees would see when they go to our website would be their re-training videos, their schedules, and their payroll.

Extranet Diagram: 5.2

Hello, everyone!  Today's new subject is the Extranet Diagram which is displayed above here! Before we talk about the diagram, let me explain what extranet is.  Extranet is a network that enables 2 or more firms to use the Internet to do business through use of VPN and firewall technologies.

Displayed above in the first box (LAN A) is the name of our company, what role we are playing (client), and it shows that we have a firewall which is the gatekeeper to our technology that keeps unwanted information out of touch.  We send our requests to the server(Haynes, LAN B) through VPN (Virtual Private Network).  VPN ensures secured transmission of proprietary information.  We then wait for a response from the server seeing what they could do for us.

Critiquing Our Competitors's Website 5.1

The website that we chose to be our competitors was www.perfect-cabin-vacations.com.  It is a website that deals with renting or selling cabins to customers who want to do it for their honeymoon or for a summer or winter home.  We are going to rate the website by applying the rules of e-commerce. The rules are:

1) The web site should offer something unique.

2) The web site must be aesthetically appeasing.

3) It must be easy to use and offer.

4) It must motivate people to visit, stay, and return.

5) It must be advertised on the Web.

6) They should learn from the website.

With all of these rules in mind, anyone can make a really great website.

Now we need to talk about which kind of business-to-consumer strategy that the website uses.  Business-to-Consumer is a transactional process between a business and a customer wanting a certain product. 


There are 3 types of B2C strategies:

Brick & Monitor, Click & Mortar, and Click Only.

I believe that the website is a click only strategy because they have no physical stores and everything is online.

Entity-Relationship Diagram 4.4

 

The diagram displayed above is an Entity-Relationship diagram.  An entity-relationship diagram is used to display the structure of data and show relationships between the entities.  Entities are what the data itself represents.  For example, Customer, Product, and Invoice are all entities because they are all nouns.   Below each of those entities are attributes or individual pieces of information about that entity in a database.  Data types are numbers or text that describe each of those individual attributes.  All of those attributes within each entity make up a record or a collection of related attributes.  The relationships are shown between each entity by an arrow or a line describing that relationship between each entity.  It could also be from attribute to attribute.

With all of this, we can make a database table in Microsoft Excel to emphasize the diagram greatly.

Packet-Switching 4.3

 

 In the diagram above, it shows us how the packet-switching technology works. There are messages that are being transferred from multiple web servers and it can cause problems.  That problem is called concurrent data transmission.  In order to solve that, packet-switching technology is needed.  Messages get sent to routers which are the "mailboxes".  They then get sent to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which divides, discards duplicates, and rearranges the mission in the correct way.  The messages are then sent to the IPs (Internet Protocol) which are then sent through ip addresses.  The IPs job may be done, but the TCP has more to do.  It makes sure that they go to the right addresses, checks to make sure if they are more packets that go with the entire message, etc.