Secure Email

I found the secure email project to be very fun! It was interesting and introduced me to a useful program called Thunderbird. I thought the directions were helpful and easy to follow and definitely opened my eyes to the importance of secure email.

I found an article from http://ezinearticles.com/?Using-Secure-Email-is-Crucial-For-Any-Business&id=3313320 that discussed the importance of secure email in the business realm. Secure email systems help to keep hackers away and help business keep their secrets, legal documents and agreements private. Secure email systems also protect information from leaking to the public, due to people that are fired or let go from a company. Also when employees or executives of a company use hot spots or Wi-Fi, secure email systems give extra security to important information. The article discussed the fact that other companies/competitors can easily locate information if they wanted to and secure email systems help to prevent any theft as easily as possible.

Below are my screenshots of my emails from Thunderbird.

Database Project

This project taught me so much about Microsoft Access. I had no prior knowledge about this program and its capabilities. Although the project was tedious, I was able to explore and download a program that I never would have otherwise explored. I learned how to create forms, reports, tables and run queries. This is interesting and useful in the business profession as another means to organize data. When a large amount of data is collected such as the amount of employees in a corporation or in this instance a group of members in a gym, this can be very helpful to track people, group and sort data and and see observe trends with dates such as the list of departed individuals in the past six months.

I think the functionality of the database could be enhanced with the help of tutorials. I had to watch the lectures over and over and also watch the additional lectures so more help would be greatly appreciated.

Web 2.0 and Presentation

After critiquing my classmate’s presentation I saw some areas I could have made some improvements upon as well as some areas that were strong. In some presentations I looked at, the pictures didn't really tell a story whereas in my presentation I decided to add a lot of pictures and media in order to capture the audience’s attention. I aligned the pictures in a way that I thought was more aesthetic to the public eye and added my own voice in order to gain a more personable feel with my audience. In my presentation I tried to describe the event with as much detail as I could, without boring the audience. I don't think I anticipated the questions very well. I tried to keep the information on slides concise so as not to be too wordy, but this technique may be lacking and thus cause the audience to not fully comprehend the content. I proofread my presentation many times and elaborated on my slides with audio and video. My goal was to captivate the eye of my audience and encourage them to have fun and be engaged because of the nature of the event- Homecoming.

Presentations like the ones we create in this class are very much needed in the business world. Presentations are constantly used in business to sell a product or illustrate a strategy for a product launch or restructure. They are great tools to deliver a message and elaborate on findings or ideas. Presentations present information in a logical and systematic way, if done so correctly. If ever I need to persuade someone in the field of business I would feel better prepared.

http://www.myplick.com/view/5I1qhj6Nls1/soulfest-final-last?invite=1vdv7690qUS

Below is a new link to my presentation on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPUevU5rX3Y

Excel Project

Excel is a program that definitely increases the efficiency of data calculations and the analyses of data and is very useful in the business realm. I had to opportunity to complete a project this past week that enabled me to act as if I worked for a fitness center and do various analyses to observe the effectiveness of a particular workout. I began by manipulating the data by adding and formatting columns, using the freeze panes option and using various formulas to find heart rates. I changed the page setup to ensure that the worksheet would print in landscape view with rows 1 and 2 and a header and footer on every page. Then I created two pivot tables to determine if the subjects reached their target heart rate after during the exercise regimen and the average percent increase in heart rate based on gender and the grouping of ages.

This project definitely helped to expand my knowledge about Excel. I had no idea the capabilities it has and how helpful it could be. This was actually the first time I have ever used the application and I found it to be rather clear. There were some parts that didn't click to me at first, such as how to make the formula apply to more than one cell without writing it every time. After I checked the discussion board things began to click. I value this experience because I feel this is another skill I can add to my toolkit. I found it interesting to change numbers to percentages and also pick how many decimal places to round the number. I learned how to use logical tests such as =IF(F3>E3,"YES", "NO") to compare sets of data and how to create pivot tables, something that I never knew existed. I was surprised to observe how helpful pivot tables are and how quickly they can manipulate information at the click of a button. I think Excel is a lot harder than it seems but I think even computer-illiterate people such as myself can get it with some practice.