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Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

2009-07-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Blogging is no more a fresh topic now. With the ease of Internet, anyone can create own blog for free even. The same happened to the corporate blogging. Corporate blogging is a new marketing communication tools nowadays and it also served as a communication channel among the managing level, executives and employees as well. The main function of the corporate blog is to reach the organizational goals.

In general, there are three types of corporate blog. First, internal blog. Internal blog is accessed through the corporate’s intranet and thus it enables each of the corporate members to view the post of blogs. On the other hand, it also encourages employee participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of the corporate and it create a sense of communication as well. Communication among the corporate members can actually enhance the relationship of them, sharing of information, experiences and opinions. Second, external blog. It is a publicly available weblog that enables the company employees, teams, or spokespersons to share their views about the company’s events or policies. It serves as a marketing tool to promote a new product of a corporate, announce the upcoming events, clarify the grapevine and it’s a public relations tool. Lastly is the CEO blog. It’s a blog that only allows the CEO in the corporate to share information, exchange opinions and discuss the important issues.

Example of a corporate blogging
An example of a corporate blogging is the official Google blog. Inside the blog, there is a large database of information such as latest Google’s products and technology, education, enterprise, politics, recruiting and hiring, scholarship and so on. Through the Google blog, we can also be linked to downloads, maps, image search and etc.

Advantages of corporate blogging

1)Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well
as employees.
2)Blogs give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
3)It’s cost efficient.
4)Enables the Sharing of ideas freely
5)Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media.
6)People are likely to give feedback if they know someone is listening. Feedback is
instead improving our performance.

Disadvantages of corporate blogging

1)It can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office..
2)There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.
3)Blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. This might properly ended up with damaging the reputation of the organization.
4)Blogs make many organizations look like disorganizations, with multiple tones and opinions.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and Citizen’s adoption strategies.

2009-07-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

Electronic government is also known as E-Gov, digital government, online government or transformational government. It provides and improves government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government through the use of information and communication technology. The government is working together with the citizens, businesses and company to enhance the relationship and it getting to know the people’s need better and provided them needed services. Two-way communication improves the quality and efficiency of the services. The Malaysia’s Electronic Government is established under the launch of the Multimedia Super Corridor’s E-Government Flagship Application to lead the country into the Age of Information. There are 7 projects under it, which are:-

1. Project Monitoring System (PMS)

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

Problems in the Implementation of the E-Gov

First, the public is not aware of it. Many do still not know that some online transactions are available. When they want to deal with the government, they go by the traditional way which is wasting time and money. Second, they do simply not trust the Internet. They are concern about the security system and afraid their personal data is stolen. Third, language barrier. Some citizens might not understanding either English or Malay version of the website.

The Citizen’s Adoption Strategies

To overcome these problems, government should create the awareness through advertising in newspaper, on TV or on-air. Other than that, government must safeguard the personal data of citizens. Just few days before, some of the websites of the American Government are hacked. So, the Malaysian Government should enhances the security and prevent this kinds of critical issue happened. Last but not least, perhaps government can allow multi languages on the website to make it convenient to all users from different races.

Reference links:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government

Electronic Currency

2009-07-13T00:11:00.000-07:00

Electronic Currency is also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency which refers to money that can only be exchanged electronically. Computer networks, internet and digital stored value systems are needed in order to use electronic currency and we can buy goods and services online by using it. On the other hand, e-currency does contribute some benefits and disadvantages to the online users.

Advantages of Electronic Currency Payment System

Privacy and confidential

The most attractive part of the e-currency is that it’s anonymous. When a customer is transferring some amount of e-currency to a merchant, there’s no one who can obtain the information of the sender. It’s unlike a credit card company who can collect information about the customers’ spending behavior and then sells this data to a third party. Electronic currency payment system is fully protecting the customers’ privacy right because even the banks do not have a record when there is an electronic currency transaction.

Strong security

The security of e-currency is provided through encryption. With the use of RSA cryptography, breaking the digital signature’s code is almost impossible. By developing longer keys, the risk of code breaking may be removed.

Disadvantages of Electronic Currency Payment System

Fraud

If private key is misplaced by the consumer and used by a perpetrator to withdraw funds, the bank wouldn’t even know and the consumer would be considered liable.

Peer to peer double spending

If the consumers choose a peer-to-peer transaction, they might be exposed under some potential drawback. Bank can check the serial number of every coin in transaction against the database of spent coins. So, the transaction can be denied if the coins have been spent.

Examples of Electronic Currency

The first example of e-currency given is Peppercoin. Peppercoin is a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. The system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest. The core idea is to bill one a lump sum of money for transactions rather than bill every transaction into a small amount. It totals up all the transactions over users, merchants as well as payment service providers. The random selection is cryptographically secure which means it cannot be influenced by other parties. Peppercoin collects 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant.

Second example is Click and Buy. There are more than 14,000 merchants from about 26 countries are benefit from this complete service. This service eases users in buying and selling online. Click and Buy internet payment and billing system enable it to become the market leaders in the Europe. Normally, it is used by msn, Skype, ScanDisk, Apple iTunes.

References:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercoin
http://www.latestbusinessupdates.com

Phishing: Examples and Its Prevention Methods

2009-07-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

Phishing is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through email, to illegally get users’ private information such as passwords, credit/debit card info, Social Security number, and the bank account numbers. Phishers falsely claiming them to be a legitimate enterprise in order to get the internet users to disclose their personal information easily. Commonly, it will provides a link that let us click on it and our personal data was stolen once we follow the instruction.

The picture on the above is an example of the phishing e-mail.

There are several steps to take to keep from being a victim of phishing, which are:-
a) Be cautious of email asking for personal information. Before we entering our personal
information, be confirmed that the email is from a legal entity or someone we know.
b) Never enter personal information in a pop-up screen.
c) Protect your computer with spam filters, antivirus and antispyware software, and a firewall.
Download the latest security updates for our web browser and operating system. It's
definitely the simplest to safeguard our personal data and keep us from being the victim.
Install all these useful software before it become too late.
d) Only open email attachments you are expecting and know what they contain. It's better to
ignore an attachment from a stranger rather than put ourselves into a risk by opening the
attachment. Other than that, we should always get ourselves updated with the information
that related to the phishing.

Lastly, a way to check whether it's a phisher is by entering a wrong password. The fake site will first accept it, and then we will be redirected to a page that asks us to log in and check later because the website is having technical problem.

Related links:-

1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
2)http://spam-ip.com/images/phishing-example-1.jpg

• E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

2009-07-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Electronic government is also known as e-gov, digital government and online government. E-gov provides and improves government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government through the use of information and communication technology. It allows the government working together with the citizens and businesses and this brings many benefits such as enhancing the relationship of both parties, government is getting to know the people better and delivers needed services for them. Two-way communication can improve the quality and efficiency of services. E-gov is established under the Multimedia Super Corridor's E-Government Flagship Application to lead the country into the Age of Information. Under the E-Gov flagship, seven main projects were identified to be the core of the E-Gov applications.

The E-Gov projects are:
1. Project Monitoring System (PMS)
2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
4. Electronic Procurement (EP)
5. Electronic Services (E-Services)
6. Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)
7. E-Syariah

There are some problems in the implementation of E-gov. First, the public are lack of awareness for this implementation. When they want to deal with the government, they go by the traditional way which wasting time and money. Second, those who are aware of it are simply not trusting the Internet. Third, language barrier. In order to overcome these problems, citizen's adoption strategies should be implemented. Government can create the public's awareness by advertising in the newspaper, on TV or on-air. To create the trustworthiness among the citizens, government should make sure that the information on website is timely and it also has to safeguard the people's personal data. Just few days before, some of the website of the American government are hacked. So, Malaysian government must be aware and prevent this critical issue. Last but not least, government should allows multi-language on the website to make it convenient to all the online users that from different races.

E-learning in Malaysia universities: Pros and Cons from students perspective.

2009-07-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

Electronic learning or E-learning is the method of learning process which is supported by technology. Usually computers are involved and activities such as web conferencing, emailing and downloading of learning materials are done for the E-learning process. There are a lot universities and colleges out there who offer online degrees and involving more digital technology to allow their students to study in an E-learning environment with qualified assistance.

In Malaysia, MARA University of Technology (UTM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), University Sains Malaysia (USM), University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) are among the few notable universities that are utilizing E-learning process to benefit their students. The development of e-learning strategies has been introduced into Malaysian public universities since 1996.

The introduction of E-learning has since brought a lot of advantages to major organizations (service providers) and individual (students). The very first advantage is the accessibility. Student can learn from anywhere, irrespective the location of their residence or the location of the organizations that provide E-classes. This can be automatically linked to environment impact reductions as students do not have to travel and virtual notes are used instead of paper notes. This is absolutely environmental friendly!

The second thing is the convenience and flexibility that a student can enjoy as E-learning process is available 24/7 where students can download lecture notes,, resources, assessments and assignments online from the website of the service providers. They also can interact with their lecturers and other students online through web conference or e-mail. Thus, they are not bound to time or day to attend classes where they must attend physically like traditional learning process.

Another advantage is learning for higher level of education, mainly tertiary studies, are made affordable yet maintaining the quality of the education as students can save up a lot of costs such as for accommodations, traveling, food and other anonymous fees necessary when you have to attend to the class physically. It is believed that a high caliber instructor can share their knowledge throughout the online network without boundaries.

However, nothing is perfect right? The main disadvantage of E-learning is the lack of face-to-face confrontation and communication between the students and the instructors or lecturers. Thus there might be no understanding between the students and the lecturers as feelings, motivation and non-verbal signs of students cannot be notice easily by web-conferencing although they can see each other, unlike the traditional learning process, Interaction between students and lecturers are necessary for building relationship and understanding as learning process is not one-way communication.

Students’ progresses also cannot be tracked since the lack of face-to-face interaction as the process of E-learning is self-paced by the students. Although this is not applicable to all students but E-learning’s students may be slacking due to the unsupervised learning process. It is best for students to learn what they should master in a specific time frame in their courses.

Although E-learning is growing and gaining popularity in every part of the world today as it has a lot of advantages to the students, instructors as well as the organizations that provides E-learning, it is undeniable too that E-learning has it’s disadvantages too. Whatever it is, we should fully utilize the benefits in the E-learning process and try to diminish the disadvantages through the cooperation with lecturers or instructors with good communication involved. Thus, there should be no problem for E-learning to carry on and continue to develop into one of the major learning process in the future.

reference links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning
http://www.hukm.ukm.my/
http://www.unimas.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=138

Review a local, transactional e-commerce site - Public Bank (week 6)

2009-07-12T05:28:00.001-07:00

Generally, there are two types of e-commerce: B2C and B2B. B2C means e-commerce transactions between business and consumer, and B2B means e-commerce transaction between businesses to business. In addition, there is also B2G (business to government) type of e-commerce.

One of the local e-commerce sites will be publicbank.com.my. Public Bank is currently the biggest domestic bank in Malaysia by shareholders' funds. It focuses on retail customers and small to medium sized enterprises. i believe that everyone knows what is Public Bank and what does it actually carry out. Previously, people will have to pay their payment manually and there are not much method of e-commerce being applied in Public bank.

Nowadays, Public bank had changed its policy and now almost everything can be deal with in e-payment. Public bank have a very attractive layout and users can easy understand with evry statement as well as every transaction made. Public bank's design looks simple but it is actually "complicated", which means it is nice and fulfill users' requirement. Besides, public bank's website using the font and color which can actually viewed by everyone and color (bright) that used is suitable to everyone.

Public bank have several types of product, which include bill payment through e-banking, investment, loan, credit transfer, gold investment, share trading, insurance, fixed deposit, public mutual, ATM and etc. All services that provided by public bank make ease of users and transaction that been made is also smooth and convenience.

Furthermore, through public bank's website, we can also link to useful website, such as MIFC, banking info, insurance info, PIDM and etc. This several link even make ease users because users can find out all possible solution and e-payment methods. Users can actually make payment or any transaction through online and it is really convenience. Public bank does really concern for everyone of us and services that provided is easy to use and guildeline is also provided to guide users.

Additionally, Public bank provides a search engine to make it convenience to the consumer and its able to fulfill the consumers' need by typing the keywords. Moreover, publicbank.com.my provides a double secure verification system too. It requires the users to verify their members’ status and telephone numbers when users wanted to trade with the items in the website. Consumers have different options to make their payment, such as online banking or by credit card which is verified via visa or master card. In order to bid and sell, Public bank also provided 2 types of verification to the consumers such as handphone verification and email verification. This can avoid the fraud and phising from occuring by giving a request code.

Sources from:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce
2. http://www.publicbank.com.my/

credit card debt:causes and preventions

2009-07-12T01:40:00.000-07:00

Why people using credit card?? Mostly people using credit card is encouragement from banks. Banks always encourage consumer to make transaction via credit cards. All these cause credit card holders increase dramatically. Furthermore, banks give a lot reward to card holder who spends higher amounts of money will get a grand prizes or money rebates. This also makes a lot card holder bankruptcy and having debts.

Causes of credit card debts

1.Poor finance management
- Purchase using credit card is very convenience because consumers is using future money without develop any plan. Thus, people do not aware amount of money
their spending. At the end of the month, they only realized that they are carrying
a huge debt after receiving monthly statement.

2.Unemployment
- Due to bad economies, many people lost their job and unable to maintain their
living expenses, so people using credit card to cover their future living expenses.
They doing like that because they need to cover their expenses purpose to maintain their current lifestyle. This may lead to a rise in debt if their expenses
are not cut down.

3.Cycle effect
- People continue using credit card will fall into a cycle of creating and paying of credit card debts. Once the debts excess their income, the interest of debts or late payment charge are coming. The extra charge makes the debts become larger and larger. At the end, pay for debts is never end.

Prevention of credit card debts

1.Budget planning
- Budget planning is a best method to help people manage their own finance.People need to learn self-control to spend and able to overcome their debts.Thus, debts would not create.

2.Downsize the credit limit
- People cannot always think that credit card is not an unlimited credit card, if card holder think this is an unlimited credit card, they will not limit their spending.

3.Commit a budget to writing
- controlling spending is the way to prevent excessive credit card debts. Write down all the budget down then you will know and clear where u money spend to, how much u spend in this month and how much left in this month. Besides that, when you know you almost over budget then you will start to control you spend.

References:

1.http://www.nurido.at/news/understanding-causes-of-credit-card-debt-problems-123653.html
2.http://www.finweb.com/banking-credit/helpful-tips-to-control-excessive-credit-card-debt.html

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

2009-07-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our society are moving towards a cashless society nowadays. Since then, many prepaid cash card are launched and frequently used in many countries and even Malaysia has it's very own prepaid cash card, which is the "Touch n Go" that we've already known since it was officially launched in March 1997.

(A Touch n Go card)

How this so-called prepaid cash card works? It is really simple. It works just like any credit card or debit card where you can purchase products and services using your card, which means that no worry if you did not bring your cash. The only difference from credit and debit cards is your card does not linked to any bank account where credit card will left your debt piled up and pay later or debit card where you spend the money available in your saving account.

Prepaid cash card only allow you to spend the credit balance which you "loaded" earlier into the card. Let's say you preload RM100 into your card, you can only spend approximately RM100 and you can't spend much more than that amount. If your card runs out of cash, just reload it from any participating outlets nationwide or reload it at any ATM where it will auto-credit your saving account.

A very good example of prepaid cash card in our country is the Touch n Go card which is launched in March 1997. Touch n Go is the only prepaid cash card that can be used to make payment for all highway tolls in Malaysia and payment for major public transportations fares (such as buses, LRT, KTM, monorail) in Klang Valley. It can be used also to make payments for parking fees in some of the shopping complexes.

(making payment at toll using Touch n Go)

Touch n Go makes payment for low-value payment convinience and efficient. It successfully reduces transaction time at busy usage points and make users convinient as they do not have to prepare small changes for payment of fare.

The Octopus card is another successful prepaid cash card that are widely use in Hong Kong. Being the world's first contactless smart card system, it has since grown into a widely used payment system for virtually all public transportation in Hong Kong. It was so successful that it was used by 95% of the Hong Kong's population aged 16 to 65, generating 10 million transactions daily.

( An Octopus card)

Initially introduced for making payments for public transportation fare, it has then expanded for multiple other purposes. Other than making payment for transportation fare, it can now be used for payments of consumer products in more than 1,000 participating merchants with the more notable such as Watson, Parkson, 7-Eleven, Starbucks and Mc' Donalds in Hong Kong. It is also used for payment of parking meters, car parks, vending machines, and phone booths.

(types of Octopus card;click to enlarge)

Back to our own widely used Touch n Go, which are famous for it usage for payment of tolls, public transportation fare, is now expanding it's services towards retain purchases. Among the participating outlets are A&W, Burger King, Dunkin' Donut, 7-eleven, Carrefour hypermarkets, Caltex convenience stores and Cineleisure. Well I can see no reasons why Touch n Go can't emulate the success of Hong Kong's Octopus card in application for retail purchase as it is the only prepaid cash card which are well known and widely use by Malaysian especially in the Klang Valley.

Until now I have not mention anything about how to check the balance for the Touch n Go card or the Octopus card. Well, you can check the balance at any usage points where it will display through a panel or indicator.

(just flash your card and after making payment the balance will be shown)

Other prepaid cash cards that are starting to build up their usage in Malaysia is the Ambank NexG Prepaid Mastercard, which is more notable of it usage where it usage is applicable in places such as convenient stores and also major shopping centers for making purchase payments.

For other countries where usage of prepaid cash cards that are rising in popularity are such as the US, where they use the Mastercard Prepaid card and the Sterling Mastercard in the UK.

( Sterling card)
(Mastercard prepaid card)

The usage of prepaid cash card is gaining popularity in the past few years, it certainly does bring more advantages than disadvantages to us. Obviously, by using a prepaid cash card, you cannot spend more than you have and it's so simple to use the card as it does not involve many procedures like credit cards where you have to sign or debit cards where you have to enter your PIN, therefore, even senior citizens can enjoy the usage of this card as they do not have to bring lots of cash when they go out.

If the implementation of payment for retail purchasing by prepaid cash card is successful in Malaysia, it sure do convinient us. Just a simple "beep" sound and your payment is made whenever you are buying something, totally hassle-free!

reference links:

http://www.touchngo.com.my/index.jsp

http://www.octopuscards.com/consumer/en/index.jsp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumer's adoption strategies

2009-07-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

As information for everyone, mobile payments are actually payments made using mobile handsets and other devices, either to directly purchase or to authorize payment for goods and services. Such devices are playing an increasing end evolving role in the wider development of electronic payment systems around Asia Pacific, which includes Malaysia. (Sounds cool right)

Mobile payment is also known as collection of money from consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone. Mobile payment systems can be used for purchasing music, ringtones, wallpaper and games (such as offered on newspaper and magazine). Most Malaysian buys these kinds of ringtones and games via mobile payment, either via GPRS/WAP or SMS.

Premium transaction is also known as types of mobile transaction Premium SMS transactions are the most common in Malaysia, most mobile users download wallpaper, music, ringtones and mobile games by buying them through SMS payment. SMS payment requires you to send a certain code to certain number to confirm you want to buy those products.

Mobile payment provider is different they uses SMS and Web, it helps to extend the ability of mobile payment. There are few mobile payment providers in Malaysia, such as Mobile Money (http://mobile-money.com.my/index.html) and mwallet (http://mwallet.com/w/mwallet.htm) who provides variety of products and services to every user. By registering an account with mobile payment provider, you can also top up your credit to them and use it to purchase products or services offered by them.

As we can see in nowadays changes, the potential for this market is quite big, since it becomes one of the most convenient methods for every user. Besides, the mobile payment providers have a large market share to be grabbed on. This mobile payment is still new and developing in Malaysia. It has potential to continue to grow as consumer’s confidence on mobile payment increased. Mobile payment providers have most potential for growing.

How Malaysian adopts with mobile payment

Nowadays, with demand for high-speed mobile person-to-person (mobile P2P) payments and transfers are growing, many consumers are saying that they would likely use the service if it were available. Consumers cited speed and convenience as primary incentives for adopting mobile P2P payment services. Besides, the speed at which the transaction is completed should be less than that of the credit card or cash and it should be hassle free. This system should indeed reduce the burden of carrying multiple cards and cash.

In today environment, everyone of us will sure believe that mobile payments would not only bring small transactions within its scope but also would have a higher reach as more people have mobile phones than other forms of electronic payments.

Furthermore, consumers would like the most trusted brands within the ecosystem to be associated with mobile payments. They would want surety about the security of their money as the mobile transaction could be a significant portion of their salary for people in the emerging markets.

Although mobile payment is very convenience but there are still many consumers have phobia in this kind of advancement technology system, so they would rather use complicated but manual processes rather than technology. Hence it is important to have transactions as easy has sending SMS and should be completed with one press of button. Consumers would adopt if there are enough merchants accepting the payments and merchants would want enough consumer pull.

Last but not least, the transaction costs need to be limited in this form of payment to encourage wider acceptance for low value transactions. It should provide a clear monetary benefit over other existing payment and money transfer mechanisms. In case of money transfer or store value accounts, there would be enough physical locations where consumers can cash out. Customer training and education is the key to success. Road shows and awareness programs can be held in malls and other high traffic locations. The success would come only when the rural areas have sufficient adoption.

References:

1.http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

2.http://www.marketingvox.com/to-adopt-mobile-p2p-payments-consumers-demand-speed-and-security-037659/

Review : Internet Security From My E-commerce blog(week 4)

2009-06-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

Review : Internet Security From My E-commerce blog (http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security)

Internet nowadays, people are using them not only for chatting, web-surfing, information searching and sending/receiving e-mails. The Internet today plays important roles too in dealing with many important activities such as bankings, payments, and even sending/receiving private and confidential information between individuals or companies for various purposes.

All these activities need to be highly secured or else, the information might fall into hands of anonymous that will misuse them, causing huge losses to ourselves. However, all such activities such as e-mail accessing or online banking require password which is only known to individuals that own them to access. But, people are not aware that their accounts can be easily hacked if they used simple passwords to protect their accounts.

According to a research done by Information Week on an analysis of 28,000 passwords from a popular website, many people use their own name as their passwords, numbers such as 1234, and even the word "password" itself as the password to access the accounts. Such passwords are too easy to be hacked and people who use such passwords are exposing themselves to extreme risks of letting their private information stolen

Thus, it is important to have a strong password, I mean a password that is not made up of simple words that can be easily guessed or hacked. The best way will be using a combination of letters and numbers to make up your password. so that it will not be easily hacked. The longer the password, the better strength it has and of course, do remember the password yourself too.

It is not so safe to write down a long password in a note and keep it in your wallet or notebook as just in case, you will lose and reveal your password to whoever that got your wallet and combined with other confidential information that contain in your wallet, such as banking account number, sorry is the only word I can say to you. Don't worry as online service provider will always have an insurance policy in case you forgot your password.

(For example, this is the homepage of Facebook. The circled words above the blank for filling in the username's password is used for requesting the password to send to your email just in case you forgot your password to access the website, but of course don't forgot your password for accesing your e-mail too.

Another way to increase the security is add another question upon accessing to the website after completing entering the correct password The purpose is to increase the strenght of the security, not only relying only on password to protect your privacy. The question must be matched with the correct answer for you to gain access to the website or else, entry will be denied.

It is important to protect the privacy of our personal information from being leaked to outsiders that might misuse them for their own advantages and causes losses to ourselves. Thus, prevention steps need to be taken seriously, especially when determining a password to entering your online banking account for example.

how to safeguard personal and financial data(week 4)

2009-06-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

Every business should develop a written information security plan that describes its program to protect individuals’ personal information. Every business has the flexibility to implement policies, procedures, and technologies that are appropriate to their unique circumstances.
Even companies take every step to secure our financial and personal data but still can let people hack our computer to violate personal information.

Several steps to secure our personal information data:

1) Protect your passwords and pins- do not share our passwords and pins with each others. We also should not store our passwords and pins on our own computer. If we need to write down our own passwords and pins after that need to store in a secure private place. The perfect passwords and pins should contain letter and symbol. Passwords and pins should change regularly and different passwords and pins in each accounts.

2) Maintain our own computer security- personal firewalls and security software packages with anti-virus, anti-spam and spyware detection features are must for those who engage in online financial transaction. Users must have up-to-date security software, including security patches, that the software is configured for automatic updates, and that the software must always turned on.

3) Use our own computer- avoid using public computers to access our personal accounts. Those places are cyber café, lab and friend’ computer. Why we cannot use our own personal account? This is because public computers may contain software that captures passwords and pins.

4) Log out completely- this step cannot miss must do it every time. Always click the “log out” button when we want close the firm’s web site. If we accidentally miss out this step, other users of the computer might be able to re-enter the site and access you personal account.

5) Check for secure web site-must ensure web site we log in is a secure web site. Secure web site address must starts with “http”. For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, look for the address bar turn to green color to identify of the site you are visiting is secure.

If we think our personal information has been stolen by other people, immediately contact your brokerage firm and financial institutions.

Reference:
http://www.finra.org/Investors/ProtectYourself/InvestorAlerts/FraudsAndScams/P037886

The threat of online security: How safe is our data? (week 4)

2009-06-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, many things is go through online and people sometimes rely too much on internet, such as to get information, online banking, online payment and so on. Everyone think that online has becomes a trend for now or even coming decade but how many people had actually thought of how safe is our data? It is actually important for every one of us to have awareness about the threat of online security. As we know, there are infinity viruses, spywares, worms, hackers, information theft and even hackers around the world, if we don’t concern or learn how to protect our data or information, sure we will become one of the victim.

From year to year, ours development of technology has been enhanced and this actually increased the risk of online security. Since most of the people around the world have their own computer and connect to internet, I believe that everyone will have the chance to face the online threat. Nowadays, many people prefer to online and download information, music and movie through internet but they are not aware that those kinds of sources might contain viruses and spywares. Sometimes, we even received a lot of pop-up (to attract online user to get in) which contains virus and those who don’t realize it will get infected by viruses or even serious.

Hacking of data have become one of the most serious case to be concerned if compare with others because our data will be stole without any alert or there will be no filtering of data (all data will be stole and hacker will know everything about us). Nowadays, hackers is all around the world and as user, we must know the basic to protect our system and information from being stole.

After e-commerce class, we learned that virus is actually a piece of code that is secretly introduced into our computer system in order to corrupt and destroy our data. If our computer system attacked by virus, it will be able to damage the operating system and causing the loss of our data or even destroyed our whole computer system. While a worm is a program which is able to duplicate itself and it is repeatedly. The repeatedly duplicated files use up the available space and slow down a computer operating speed. Last but not least, a Trojan horse is a program that hides within or looks like a legitimate program.

In conclusion, as computer users, we must actually have the knowledge about latest internet security because this can be useful for us in order to prevent those online threats. Therefore, we must always make sure that our computer security guards, such as firewall and antivirus is on so that it can defense against threats from external or even internal.

References:
1. http://www.bsagovernment.com/downloads/MajorOnlineThreats.pdf

2. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Education_01/5217_01.htm

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes(week 3)

2009-06-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

eBay- which is founded by Pierre Omidyar, is an auction house that never sleeps and it connects both buyers and sellers. eBay is operating on a basic business model, which combined the elements of yard sales, newspaper classified ads, and auctions, that contributes to its success. eBay's role is simply bringing the buyers and sellers together and facilitates commerce. It does not carry and ship inventories. It's exactly like a medium that joined the online buyers and sellers. To become a buyer or seller, we just have to go through a few steps and this only takes few minutes. In addition, eBay also provides us with the user guides.Nevertheless, eBay is not only about getting an item sold, but it also strives to establish trust among buyers and sellers. Its core interest is to build an online community so that everyone can get the most out of what they have. eBay even provides a chatting room for its users to talk and exchange information and opinions. This can establish a relationship among users and can also improve the buying process which reduces the cognitive dissonance of post-purchase. Another cause of success is, people are enjoying the process of bidding. Most of the people like a bargain, they like to negotiate over a price and they feel really satisfied when they are able to get a lower price.

Google is changing everything (Week 3)

2009-06-21T19:17:00.001-07:00

Nowadays, it is no doubt that Google is well known for its search engine and it has grown faster (even faster than other well known internet company, such as Yahoo). Since Google is now well known, many people has access on it and tried its functions. Some of my friends told me that their life has been changed by using Google, so I believe that Google has actually changing everything and becomes part of our life.

We can find everything through Google and whatever we search (information, entertainment, video, etc) for, it will be there. Google has organized its structure very well and it has combined all information around the world. Now, Google has become universal and we can find our preferred things and information just through one click on it. Google arranged its information well and make sure everything is easy for everyone to understand. Since everything in Google easy to search for, it makes our life easier.

Through Google map, we can actually determine our location and it is very accurate and equipped with latest technology. Through it, we can actually know information and location all around the world. By using Google, we can access to everything just by click on it and we don’t have to pay anything, even single amount of money (can you imagine how good it is, everything is there for you and FREE, just depends on whether you have the intention to find it out).

Nowadays, Google has become a guideline for everyone and whoever is using it, sure they will admit that it is worth and the best. Google has guide every one of us to find out what is important in our life and what we want for our life. We can link from server to server through Google and many companies put their advertising on Google because they knew that Google can help them to change everything (advertise through Google sure will get respond from many people).

Since Google is now changing everything, I am sure that people will switch their lifestyle towards it and adapt with the new culture, which is “Google World”.

History and Evolution of E-commerce(week 3)

2009-06-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

In 15th century, the scope of the commodity trade was drastically extended to the whole world and also involved in the global trading network. At the end of the 20th century, the invention of the Internet announced the arrival of the global trade era, Electronic businesses.

E-commerce is popular for conducting business by using electronic to making transaction. It has to do with selling and buying goods and services using computer telecommunications networks.

Amazon is first Internet Company to allow electronic transactions. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was the first American ecommerce companies to sell products over the Internet

Evolution of E-commerce

Year 1960
The first step came from the development of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI is a set of standards to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. It was standardized through ASC X12, this guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

Year1984
the ASC X12 standard became stable and reliable in transferring large amounts of transactions, and was adapted quickly by those institutions who wanted to do business electronically.

Year 1992
the first point and click web browser called Mosaic. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser, Netscape, which allowed easier access to electronic commerce.

Year 1995
Two of the biggest companies are launched using e-commerce concept are Amazon.com and eBay.com.

Year 1998
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) provides high-speed Internet. Let more users take advantage of e commerce with more convenience.

Year 2000
In February 2000 hackers attacked some major players of e-commerce, including Yahoo, ebay and Amazon.

Web 2.0 perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It includes social-networking sites, video-sharing sites and blogs.

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. It can build on the interactive facilitates of “Web 1.0” to provide “ Network as platform” computing.

References:
http://realonlinemoneymaking.com/131
http://www.flysyk02.netfirms.com/Ecommerce/History.htm
http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/the-history-evolution-of-e-commerce/
www.wikipedia.com

Revenue models for Google, Amazon.com and eBay(week 3)

2009-06-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

We are surfing the internet daily visiting various websites for different purposes. But well, all the websites need money to sustain and maintain themselves, such as server maintenance, employees' salaries, but how do they generate incomes?

From our studies we have known that E-commerce companies can generate revenues using methods in the revenue models which are:-

Sales - where revenue is generated from sales of goods or services
Transaction fees - where commissions are paid based on volume of transactions
Subscription fees - monthly or yearly fixed amount fees that have to be paid for some services
Affiliate fees - payments from advertisers for placing their advertisements on a website

Google

I believe that Google is one of the most well known and often used search engine in the world. Google provides Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, social networking and video sharing services. Some brief history about Google; Google was founded Larry Page and Sergey Brin in January 1996 when they carry out it as a research in Stanford University, California. The domain google.com was registered on 15 September 1997 and incorporated as a company in 1998. Google was listed in the public in August 2004 and continue to grow until today. As of March 31 2009, Google has 20,164 full-time employees.

Google is used mainly as a search engine(also most popular services, with 53.6% marketshare on the web), thus, 99% of their revenue is from advertising fees. Google AdWords(cost-per-click or cost-per-view advertising scheme advertising text and banners) allows web advertisers to place their ads alongside the search results when users are using the search engine.

Another Google's advertisement application is the Google AdSense, that allows web owners to display their ads on their own sites to generate revenue(pay-per-click or per-impression basis). Web owners that are enrolled can enable text, image, video advertisements on their websites and these advertisements are administered by Google.

amazon.com

Amazon.com, well, is a total different thing from Google. Amazon.com, being the U.S. largest online retailer, was founded in 1994 and went online in 1995. It was founded by Jeff Bezos and name the website after the world's biggest river. Amazon.com initially started as an online bookstore but the business started to diversify to selling products such as DVD, music CD, MP3s, computer softwares, video games, apparels, electronics, furniture, toys and even food!! It provides international shipping to certain countries.

Amazon.com is a classic example of an E-commerce website that generate revenue through sales. Being one of the few companies that started and popularized online shopping, Amazon.com attracted at least 615 million visitor yearly by 2008, 50 millions U.S. consumers monthly(sources: Compete.com) and generates revenue by selling books, DVD, CD, MP3s, electronics, etc.

Amazon.com also generate revenue from affiliate fees as well by gaining commissions for referring customers to third party sellers that list and sell their products on Amazon website. In the other way, these affiliates also place links to Amazon in their own websites linking to Amazon.com, and if referral sales occured, these affiliates will receive commissions in return from Amazon. It was estimated that Amazon has 900,000 members in its affiliates programs.

http://www.amazon.com/

eBay

eBay eBay, is a very common word that we can listen today. From what we have already known, Ebay as an online auction website, also functioning as an online shopping website too where people and businesses can buy and sell variety of goods and services worldwide from this website. There are millions of items that you can find from eBay ranging from collectible items to vehicles, either new or second hand items that are open for bidding.

This online auction website was founded in September 3, 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, a French-born Iranian computer programmer. eBay was listed publicly on September 21, 1998 and the founder became instant billionaire!! eBay also owns Paypal and Skype and has established localized websites in thirty countries.

eBay homepage

Unlike the main revenue models that Amazon.com and Google are using, eBay is using a totally different revenue model. eBay generates revenue from a number of fees:-

Insertion Fee - Fees that are needed to pay when registered users want to list their items on the website for sales which are not refundable.
Final Value Fees - Fees that are charged to sellers as commissions when sales occured.

To learn more about eBay sellers' fees in details, click here .

With a large base of users worldwide that sell their items and products on eBay, eBay generates a large pool of revenue from the fees that are charged to the sellers.

Other than that, Paypal (online payment and money transfer) that is owned by eBay, its payment system also has its own fees that contribute to eBay revenue.

Last but not least, eBay also has its own affiliates program that contribute to its revenue by earning the commissions from the affiliates's transaction fees.

From here I have listed down the three major E-commerce websites and contrasted their revenue models while included some brief history about the websites. Google.com, the world most popular search engine that rely on advertising fees to generate revenue. Amazon.com, the U.S. largest online retail shopping website that generate revenue through sales and affilates fee. Finally, eBay that generate revenue from the incurred sellers' fee, affiliates programs and acquired businesses such as Skype and Paypal. We cannot determine which can be the best revenue model but we can see from here E-commerce has proven to be successful if the right market is targeted and the right way is done.

1st post.. Introduction..

2009-06-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

Ehem.. well welcome to en2en.blogspot.com.. The 1st posting is mainly about brief intro about our group members in this assignment group(briefly intro lor as tutor wanted us to do so..

blog editor #1 : Chen Chun Pin a.k.a CCP

Hi everybody.
It's nice "to be forced" to start blogging for this subject.
WHY???
Because i will be able to know more about my classmates especially my group mates.
Know what's happened to them, their experiences, their thought, their life yet their stories.
It's a good and perhaps a last chance to really get to know each other as we are going to graduate very soon (If we are all so lucky lah..hahaha..)
Perhaps some might think :" Har?!Graduate?? Stil got a long journey to go, now only Year 3 Sem 1.....But for me, started from last sem, I already felt that the campus life is almost ends. I think it's good to have that kind of feeling cause...It let me feel more appreciate of the time spending with my dear classmates, though just having a lunch with them. Time is passing, everyone is changing However, may all the memories be with us forever.
Well, basically i'm an ordinary girl that hoping for an extraordinary life. For me, life should be wonderful as everyone only live once. Extraordinary life does not necessary mean rich in $$$$(though no $$$, no talk.haha..) but I want a life that is rich with knowledge,experiences and happiness for sure. However, life is incomplete without sadness,negativity,frustration and failure. So, become an optimist is the only positive option to deal with all these unwanted situation........
During free time, i like reading, playing puzzle and assembling gadget. Other than that, surfing is also my favourite hobby. The top 5 websites i visit most frequently are:-

1) Google (http://www.google.com.my/)- Google is GREAT!!! You can feel the same especially when you are doing assignments. Just by typing keywords, it will direct us to the relevant website. It's a powerful search engine. We can find any information even like "How to Make a Bomb"!!!hahaha...

2) 8tv (http://www.8tv.com.my/)- View my favourite TV-Show and news online.

3) Sogua (http://www.sogua.com/)- Download songs, lyrics, mtv, and movies. It's also updated us with the latest news of the artists.

4) eBay (http://www.ebay.com/)- Never buy anything from eBay so far. Simply want to know the best price to become a smart consumer. Hahaha.

5) Haha365 (http://www.haha365.com/)- It's a website that contains a lots jokes. It brights my days.

The five online activities that i involving are reading books, watching TV broadcast, downloading movies and softwares, online ordering, and searching information.

Here are some of the photos to be shared. Cheers.

blog editor#2 : Choo Kah Wai a.k.a CKW

CKW here, 22 of age, currently living in Bandar Sungai Long, a simple normal ordinary UTAR student in BEN course Tutorial Group 2 with not much special interest. Well, I survived all the way to Year 3 in BEN course since May 2007. By the way i am into photography and gadgets, and have a bunch of collections of GUNPLA models(if u are curious what is this, feel free to ask..)

For the top 5 websites that i frequently visit are:-

1)facebook(http://www.facebook.com/) - to check out updates about friends and people I know in my social networks

2)Soccernet(http://www.soccernet.com/) - forgot to mention but I am a football fan as well.. Favourite club definitely will be Liverpool FC. This website is one website for me to check out what's happening in the football world

3)TheStar(http://www.thestar.com.my/) - Reading newspaper is good.Daily. Why spend RM1.20 when you can read it online everyday for free?

4)Lowyat.net(http://www.lowyat.net/) - To check updates about gadgets and latest technologies so that I don't fall behind in this 'advance world'... and there is a discussion forum too where I can read and do discussion in an open forum.(www.lowyat.net/forum)

5)Youtube(http://www.youtube.com/) - Entertainment, songs, drama, a good website to kill time!

I think I oso briefly intro d hor..?
chill guys.. what a hazy and hot weather out there.. here some cool(cold) stuffs to chill you guys.. enjoy(the pics i mean..^^)

(hi, i am Choc-blended, i m cool)

(hi, honeydew sago here, i m cool~)

(hi, mixed-fruits sago here, i am cool too)

(traditional Malaysia ais kacang, cool~)

blog editor#3 : Hoo Lun Hoong a.k.a HLH

Hey guys, HLH here, going 21 soon. People who know my name will sure link me with "HL milk", if I'm really the milk, for sure the whole world will know me d (haha, nice to be popular sometime, as we know 'life is short' wat).

I really feel good with my current class (EN2) because everyone looks nice. Some of them are "nice to see, nice to talk but once you hurt our boss (theresa's gang), considered gone (haha, just have fun ^^, don't take it serious lo)." Well, once a while, I will play badminton and futsal with my friends at Phoenix there. Sometimes, the whole class of mine will go Sungai Long Golf Club to enjoy its facilities and play games.

Since I'm in (UTAR), BDD has becomes one of my "mission" (always with one slogan, which is "blood donation, donate blood, save life"), my friends and I always repeat the same thing for 3 years, over and over but we still prefer to say it because it is worth to be said.

More to says is I'm a football fan (Manchester United & England). Although some of my friends not the same as me but we are still enjoying football match together (I think so, haha ^^). For me, football match really helps in reduce stress and tention (of course when the team you support win la ^^).

Since unit plan states that we need to list out our five most visited websites, then I will show it out lo... Here are "them" :-

1) Soccernet (http://www.soccernet.com/) - it has becomes my home page (Internet) and one of my "important reference" to get me updated with latest news of football.

2) Golden Screen Cinema (http://www.gsc.com.my/) - almost view it once a week to get me updated with latest movies' info & download some movies' wallpaper from here (of course I'm not that rich la, always go watch movie, haha)

3) Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/) - visit this website frequently because it does brings a lot of funny videos. guys, you all can also get some drama and movie through it, not bad & worth to try it.

4) Hdzone (http://www.hdzone.org/) - one of my favourite because it contains a lot of entertainment. Guys, just try it and you all will get the latest songs, drama and movie. Besides, we can also found article and a lot of daily knowledge, world news and something even "weird" through it.

5) China Press (http://www.chinapress.com.my/) - getting most of the latest news from here, easy to access and save money (back home only buy sin chew jit poh).

Thanks a lot to everyone who accompany me all the ways (gone through my EN2 life). I believe that I had wrote something here and friends of mine will complete it nicely ^^

blog editor#4 : Kan Pui Fong a.k.a KPF

I am pui fong, studying at UTAR sg long. I am the eldest daughter in my family.My hobbies are shopping, traveling and reading. Honestly, I do not like to read books that are outside our syllabus previously. But, i affected by my friends "unconsciouly" and started to read other types of books to absorp extra knowledge. Actually I like to socialize but i do not know how to interact with friends, foreigners and strangers. Recently my friend, Christine helps me to overcome it and she introduced some Nigeria and China friends to me. Gradually, i realised that communicate with them is only an easy job. Thank you Christine for helping me to know foreign friends and i'm not only can improve my English but also get to know others'culture.

1) Friendster(http://www.friendster.com/)- In my feeling, i feel friendster is like local friendster. Why i say like that? because when u login to friendster got alot Malaysia people. So if you want to know more Malaysian, you can login to friendster and search.

2) Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/)- When you wan your friend list expand to the whole world, you can try to play facebook. Have more different country people will play facebook. Facebook will more interesting compared than friendster. Because inside facebook not only can send the message also can play some childish game. So, i prefer play facebook.

3) 1ting(http://www.1ting.com/)- this website is let us search our love song but cannot download it la....it just can let u try to listen through online.

4) China Press(http://www.chinapress.com/)- visit this website to see anything happened around us. Another way to learn extra knowledge too.

5) Google(http://www.google.com/)- very convenience to us when our need to search some information.Anything we want to know just find from here sure you will get the answer you know.