Secure Email Project

I have recently completed the secure email project using the email client mozilla Thunderbird.  Below is a screenshot of my inbox using thunderbird after recieving reply emails from the professor of the class.  The project was completely new to me but I think it will end up being very beneficial for me to learn this in my future business endeavors.

http://articles.boston.com/2008-09-18/news/29271333_1_govpalin-account-palin-s-yahoo-mails

Above is a link to an article about Sarah Palin's email account being hacked during her run for vice presidency with John McCain in 2008.  The hackers got access to a lot of private emails to other politicians in Alaska and around the country.  This could have been avoided by encrypting the important and very private messages that she would not want to get out.  None of us expect to have our email accounts hacked but by encrypting the important messages it only protects you and the recipients of the messages from people that shouldn't be able to view the messages.

Tutorial Blog 3/Importing and Exporting Data In Access

With today being the information age a lot of times I think we find ourselves overloaded with information while running out of room to store and manage it.  Well, microsoft access is a powerful database tool that will allow you to store and manage your data as you see fit.

Many people have heard of access but have never attempted to learn it's full capabilities.  One thing most people do not know is that you can import and export data into and out of microsoft access.  This is very useful when you realize that you have a very large excel or text file that would be easier to manage as a database.  Within the next couple of paragraphs I hope to show you how to properly import and export data in access.

First, you need to open microsoft access and open a blank database.  After opening a blank database you then will need to go to external data on the ribbon which will display two boxes; one with options for importing and one for exporting.  You should see something similar to the image below.

We'll start with importing data.  As you can see from above you have several options to choose from when importing data such as excel, sharepoing, text files and xml files.  We'll keep it simple for demonstration purposes and choose to import an excel file.  After clicking on the excel icon in the Import window you'll have a dialog box appear where you can browse your hard drive for the correct excel file to import as well as choose whether you want access to create a new table for the data or just append it to a table currently in your database.  Access will then give you the option to choose which worksheets you would like to include from the excel file.  After selecting your range you will then click next.  If your first row includes column headings be sure to check the check box on the next page so they will be recognized as field titles.  After that you will be given the option to select the data type necessary for each field as well as choosing a primary access key.  After all of this you're ready to name your file and finish the import.  After finishing the import it should open your new table in datasheet view with all the data from the excel file.  You're new table may look something like this.

So since you now know how to import data into access let's quickly go over exporting as it is very similar but much easier.  Let's export an access table to excel.  As you probably guessed you will simply click on the excel button in the Export pane.  You will then select the file type you want the table to be saved as, as well as selecting the file name.  After making the appropriate selections you will click ok and you will see a message that tells you your table was successfully exported. 

I hope that this was helpful in explaining how to import and export data in microsoft access.  It would be best for you to try it out yourself and play with the different file types.  There are several more options when importing a text file but mostly it is self explanatory.  Hopefully, by practicing you'll be comfortable with microsoft access in no time! 

Database Project

I've learned to work a database!  I just completed a project using the powerful and popular microsoft office database tool access.  My assignment included importing a delimited text file that included about a thousand entries with a local gym's customer information.  After importing the raw data I was then asked to perform a query that would show only individual memberships rather than family memberships and only those that have left the gym within the last 6 months.  I found this task to be the most challenging throughout the project, especially trying to only display the customers that had terminated their membership within the last 6 months.  I did a search and found an expression that worked and displayed only the requested memberships.  The expression was >Date()-180.  This expression took today's date, March 27th, and subtracted 180 days or 6 months.  By putting a greater than sign in front of the expression it only displays dates greater than 6 months ago.  After doing the query I also did a form to enter in new customer's info as well as do a report based on the aformentioned query.  I learned a lot of features that are available to users through microsoft access but I'm sure I've only began to scratch the surface to the sofware's database capabilities.

I think there would be several ways to take better advantage of the database used in this assignment.  I think it would be a good idea to do a query on just family memberships and compare the difference between how many family customers you've lost to how many individual members you've lost.  This will help to tell you what marketing strategies would be best suited to retain more of your customers.  I think it would also be helpful to do a report on what the average length of a gym membership is for a family and individual.  In my opinion, these would be vital statistics when forecasting sales for your business as well as marketing to retain current customers. 

Overall, I thought this was a great and challenging project.  I enjoyed learning some of the more important features of access and am looking forward to taking advantage of the power of databases in the near future!

Presentation Project

I have now successfully completed a powerpoint presentation and shared it with the world on YouTube.  The link for my presentation is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXqw-WjLGm4.  I have reviewed my presentation with the provided critique rubric as well as reviewed one of my peer's presentations on the appropriate discussion board.  In accordance with the rubric I feel as though my presentation was very well organized as far the layout of the slides.  I tried to make it flow very easily and keep everything in sequence. 

I also attempted to think of any questions ahead of time so I could answer them during the presentation instead of leaving my listeners wondering about my idea.  I think I did a good job at covering all the necessary details but not giving away too much information.  I also grabbed the listener's attention on the second slide by telling a shorty story about a long essay assignment due in two days.  I then went on to explain that our new site would be the place to go to see prior student's samples as well as conducting and saving your research.

I thought I gave an in depth review of what my website idea entails including the layout of the site, the market potential, the customers or students, as well as the overall plan for starting the business.  I didn't want to present too much information so I tried to leave out boring statistics as much as I could and focus on the essentials of the site.

I have learned a lot from this project.  I found the project to be fun and interesting.  I know on probably more than one occasion during my professional career I will have to give a presentation so I think this was a great way to start getting myself prepared.  The hardest part of the project for me was trying to convert the powerpoint presentation to a video so it could be uploaded to YouTube.  I tried several different avenues and finally got it converted but then my audio didn't exactly match my slides.  I tried redoing it several times but kept running into the exact same issue.  So I decided to settle with what I had but overall I think it was a very successful presentation

Making a Good Presentation

(image retrieved from http://parentingnotperfection.blogspot.com/2010/08/feeling-frazzled-mom-up.html)

Imagine that you've just received an assignment to give a huge presentation to a large crowd of your co-workers.  It may be a fairly complex subject that you know will be hard to present to a group of "lay people."  You also know that your future professional success could depend heavily on this presentation as your bosses will be depending on you to come through.  This is not a time to get frazzled as the lady is in the image above.  This should be a time for thought and planning.  The key to a successful presentation is preparedness. 

So how can you begin such a large task?  The first step to take when brainstorming for any presentation should be preparing a storyboard.  A storyboard is basically the first step in the presentation process that allows you to sketch out your ideas on paper.  This process can be as detailed as you would like it to be by actually drawing out slides, images you would like to include and speaking notes for each slide. 



Above is an example of a storyboard that was retrieved from( http://www.deniselynshue.com/storyboard.html)

This is a good example of a storyboard that was probably generated by some sort of computer program but this process can be as simple as grabbing a pencil and paper and physically drawing out each slide with appropriate comments.  This should just be used as a starting ground for your project.

Next I want to talk about the actual powerpoint presentation or whatever software you plan on using when making your visual presentation.  I think it is very important to keep things simple and only include key information that the listener will need to hone in on.  If you do your due research and become very knowlegeable on the subject matter you have to be careful to not overload the presentation that will confuse the listener and make them lose interest.  You want to include images and phrases that catch their attention and that you can elaborate on by speaking.  You also need to be prepared to take questions at any time during the presentation as well as afterward.  By taking questions you are ensured that someone is listening and interested in what you have to say.  Making a successful powerpoint presentation can be very complex but remember sometimes simpler is better.  There are many sites that will turn up when a powerpoint help search is done that will help you to establish what is proper presentation etiquette when drafting your design.

One last point I would like to make is the opening statements of the presentation.  This is the time to catch your listener's attention so you can keep their attention throughout the presentation.  I encourage you to do something different and unexpected that will catch their eye and attention.  This is a time to be funny and witty, possibly even share a short story that leads into the content of your presentation. 

So when you have to make an important presentation just remember that planning is essential.  The more you practice and tweak your presentation the more comfortable you will become which will help to take away any nerves that you may have in front of your peers on the big day!  Here is a link to a youtube video that describes several tips when designing your powerpoints!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Tky6v0HE8

Excel Project

Over the last couple of days I have been working on the Excel Project for my business computing class.  This project gave me a great opportunity to polish a few old skills and learn a few new ones.  The assignment was to take a large sample of raw data that was taken from 500 people exercising in a gym and manipulate it according the gym owner's requirements.  Their heart rates were measured once every minute while working out and once every minute after the workout.  The gym owner's instructions included me formatting the raw data by adding new columns and formulas as well as using the pivot table function to analyze the data. 

I use Excel 2003 at work almost daily and have become very accustomed to using that version so it took me a few minutes to locate certain things such as the freezing of the first two rows so they will be displayed as the user scrolls down the spreadsheet.  However, the inserting of new columns and the resizing of columns was nothing new.  Another thing that was different in Excel 2007 was the formatting of the print preview screen.  It seems as though I have a lot more capabilities of formatting how the page is printed though.   

In several of the new columns that I inserted I had to write a formula to calculate certain results such as their target heart rate, whether or not that was acheived, and the percentage increase from the start of the exercise to their highest recorded heart rate.  Since I work with Excel quite frequently I found most of these to be fairly simple.  However, I did not know that there was a MAX function.  I think this function will be useful in my professional career as I plan to apply it the next time I have a similar goal at work.

Before this project I had never worked with pivot tables.  When analyzing large samples of data in the past I always found it to be very time consuming and more trouble than it was worth.  But with pivot tables you can analyze a large spreadsheet of data in a matter of seconds.  I am looking forward to applying this to my work in the near future.  Below is a screenshot of the pivot table I made to find the average percentage increase in heart rate for males and females of certain age groups.

Overall, I found this project to be challenging and rewarding.  I hope that I can put to good use some of the new features I've learned such as pivot tables and some of the print options I've learned as well.  I really enjoy working with Excel and am looking forward to learning some more of the advance features.

Tutorial 1: What is going on during the system boot process?

System Boot Process

Every time you sit down to use your computer you more than likely will have to wait for it to "boot up".  So why does this process have to happen every time you press the power button and why is it essential to your computer's operating system?  Most of us acting as simple computer users cannot appreciate the complex functions that are happening behind the scenes so to speak.

Booting up?  I'm sure at some point you've wondered to yourself why would the process of starting your computer be referred to as booting up?  This phrase refers to the age old idiom of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps."  In other words, the computer cannot run without first running software but the computer must be running before any software can be installed.  Now this makes sense!  You can read more about this here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting

You may recognize the screenshot above to be similar to what you see when starting up your computer.  So exactly what is happening and how does the computer get going?

BIOS in ROM

When you press the power button on your computer the power supply turns on and allows the processor to start.  The processor is pre-programmed from the manufacturer such as Intel or AMD to look in a specific place in ROM memory to find instructions on where to find the entire BIOS or basic input/output system startup program.  The BIOS performs the power on self test or POST and if any errors are found the system will beep.  If no errors are found the BIOS will search for the video card's built in BIOS program which initializes the card and allows the screen to display information.  The BIOS then looks for the hard disk program to initialize.  After this the startup screen as shown above is displayed to the user.  The computer then checks for any errors and goes through a checklist to ensure that all computer components have been initialized.  Then the BIOS searches the hard disk for a master boot record which is what actually starts the computer's operating system.  When this record is located the operating system's code takes over and properly loads the OS.  If no master record can be found on the hard drive the screen will display a message saying there is "no boot device available".  This message may alarm you and it should!  More than likely this means there is something wrong internally with your hard disk.  I hope you remembered to back up your data!  But hopefully you didn't receive this message and your computer is ready to use.

Hopefully you can now understand a little better what is going on behind the scenes inside your computer the next time you press the power button.