Secure Email Project

Before starting the project, I really thought it was going to be more difficult--especially since I had no clue how to encrypt messages. However, the instructions helped a lot and I was able to complete it without many obstacles.

Here are the screenshots of my Thunderbird Inbox and Dr. Means' replies:

Images taken by Albert Lopez.

Article Link: http://searchfinancialsecurity.techtarget.com/news/1349375/Wells-Fargo-deploys-Voltage-for-secure-email

Article Summary:

Email security should be a main concern for most businesses—especially financial institutions holding sensitive information. Wells Fargo & Company has certainly made security a priority. An article published by Security Magazine talks about how the company has deployed Voltage Security’s SecureMail. When Wells Fargo began to look for a new security system, user experience was really important because not all customers are technology savvy. One of the benefits of SecureMail is that users do not need to download anything to access it; however, it does require users to use another server to identify information (such as an email address) that will unlock the message.

SecureMail has saved Wells Fargo time and money in sending confidential documents to customers and employees. As a matter of fact, about 20,000 employees and customers were using the program in 2009—this number has only increased since then.  Furthermore, It is believed that Wells Fargo will significantly broaden its deployment to approximately 175,000 users! Overall, I believe that Wells Fargo has taken an important step that will surely attract customers concerned with confidentiality and email security. It is vital that many other businesses do the same, especially since identity theft has become a growing issue. 

Database Project: Using MS Access

Before working on this project, I had never used Microsoft Access. I have heard so many great things about it in the past, but never actually used it. After watching the Access videos, practicing activities, and completing this project, I now see why so many businesses and people give it such great reviews!

One of the most important features I learned about Access was creating reports. I find this feature to be very helpful when presenting co-workers with data at meetings. Thanks to reports Access creates, data can easily be analyzed when grouping and sorting out data. When working on the project, I was able to quickly look at all the customers in a specific city, and see the most recently departed first. Another really important element that I learned to use was queries. Queries can be extremely helpful when you want to limit the amount of data in a table (like we did in the project). Moreover, queries allow the user to do so many different things including create, retrieve, update, and delete large amounts of records.  I found it very useful using queries to filter data through different fields. In turn, using queries are very advantageous when wanting to create a report with limited data later on.  

Overall, I learned so many other features—especially since I had never used the program—but it would take many more paragraphs to talk about them all. Most importantly, I learned how great the program is, its features, and how I would apply them in the business world and my future career.

I believe that adding payment information in the “New Members Form” can be useful when members fill out their forms. A text box can be integrated that will tell the gym owner what type of fitness plan they would like to sign up for. The form will copy this information and update it on the “members” table. Another way to enhance the functionality of the database is to add a field that shows the next payment due dates for each member. This can be useful to owners when sending reminders to their members, and can be useful when creating reports for finance meetings.

Web 2.0 Presentation: Keep America Beautiful

Link to Web 2.0 Presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8XBxhUyNcs

Creating this Web 2.0 Presentation taught me a lot about very useful technology and resources that I have not used before--such as Camtasia and a few PowerPoint features. Critiquing my own presentation was both interesting and useful. I learned a lot about my presentation and myself as a presenter. In regards to my presentation, I strongly believe it had logical flow and sequence of content. I first set up environmental problems that led up to non-profit organization I wanted to focus on, which was "Keep America Beautiful". However, I do think I could have added more details on a few slides--however, I did not want to put too much information and bore my audience. In addition, I believe I anticipated questions and answered them in the right place. I provided useful information, referred to a few questions that the audience probably had, and I answered them right after that.

In my presentation, the attention grabber was the shocking fact provided by a reliable website discussing Recycling and Waste. The attention grabber was the fact that the US is the #1 trash-producing country in the world, in other words, about 5% of the world's population makes up 40% of the world's garbage. In my opinion, that is a eye-opening fact that has made me more conscientious about the amount of waste I produce. I certainly asked a few questions that probably go the audience thinking more about the topic, such as "who does this affect?", and "How can I help this organization?". I feel that such questions allow the audience to reflect on the topic's issues, and thereby be persuaded to donate to the organization. On the other hand, I do believe I could have asked more profound questions that sparked the audience's curiosity a little more. Moreover, I made sure to set the context with a concise explanation and to be clear about the presentation's purpose. Although what I was trying to share was pretty clear, I think I should have done a better job at validating some claims.

Furthermore, I stayed away from errors and inconsistencies, as well as typos within my slides. Unfortunately though, there were a couple of small speech errors in the narration; I tried to avoid them as much as possible, but I had a hard time editing parts of the audio. In regards to the slides design, I tried to keep my slides simple to avoid clutter and ensure readability. I made sure my font was large enough to read and I used good font colors that stand out such as black, orange, and blue. Apart from reading a few facts from the slides, I explained a few pictures, and provided additional information relevant to what I wanted to show. I thought this was important because I did not want to put too much information in each slide and I tried to avoid signal-to-noise ratio from bullets and pictures. After completing my project, I criticized another student's presentation to help me realize how I could improve my presentations in the future. I ended up learning a lot about my peers, their designs, narrations, as well as the different types of media they used. I also learned about very interesting organizations, and great techniques on how to persuade someone to donate.  

Overall, I found this project to be highly interesting and useful for my career in the future. I became a bit more familiar with Youtube and some of their features as I uploaded the presentation. Most importantly, I learned how to use Camtasia for macs. Before this project, I was not familiar with any programs that recorded presentations from the computer screen; I learned a significant amount about how to use Camtasia, its features—and in general, how to improve my presentations. I strongly believe that learning how to use such programs will improve the quality of the business plans I will present throughout my career. This knowledge will also be very useful in the marketing aspect of business. Marketing companies can use these powerful resources to persuade the consumer more efficiently and effectively. I will certainly use what I’ve learned from this project in the future when I start my own business. Finally, I think learning how to use such resources is essential in this very competitive business environment. Globalization and information technology are becoming significant factors in the continued progression of economic marketing schemes. Therefore, by applying these new skills and using such resources, I will definitely have a competitive advantage in my career.  

Excel Project

For the Excel Project in this course, we were given the heart rates of 500 fitness center members and were asked to perform specific tasks on Excel. The heart rates were measured  at 1 minute intervals throughout the 15 minute workout, and through the 5 minute cooldown.

First, I was asked to reformat a few items to make the worksheet look more organized. I then used the “Freeze Panes” capability to lock in Rows 1 and 2. I was familiar with this feature, but did not know how to freeze more than one row until I watched the Excel videos. After this, I was asked to add a new column that estimated the maximum heart rate for each member, and a column that calculated the target heart rate. However, the latter column required the use of absolute referencing. When using Excel in the past, I have needed to use this feature but did not have the slightest clue on how to use it. Now I know that if I need to reference a specific cell in a formula, all I have to do is put a “$” in front of the column and row (Ex: $C$6). This is something so simple, yet USEFUL! Next, I used the maximum formula to find out the highest heart rate achieved by each member. Afterward, I had to use an “If” statement formula to determine whether each member achieved their target heart rate. Before doing this project, I had no idea how to write “If” statements on Excel. I think acquiring this skill is very important for analyzing data and for decision-making, and I am very happy to have learned this feature. Next, came a few simple tasks such as calculating the percentage increase in heart rate, creating some headers and footers, and changing a few printing options. The second part of the project required some data analysis using Pivot Tables. One of the tables organized the average percent increase in heart rate by gender and age group. Here’s a screen shot of the pivot table I created:

Overall, I found this project to be very entertaining, useful, and informative. It was a great way to learn and apply all the Excel fundamentals. I learned quite a lot about different Excel features, and have acquired many skills needed in the business environment. Some of these new skills I acquired include using relative and absolute referencing, creating “if” formulas, using freeze panes, making pivot tables, and analyzing large amounts of data. I believe all of these skills will certainly be helpful in my future business career.