Tech Topic Connection

 Programming languages is a system that help build different computer applications, fundamental IT concepts can be considered, "information security, database and network management, computer technical support, and business software development"(Network Depot, 2017). 

When creating a new computer application one must take into account all the fundamental IT concepts such as information security. Information security is crucial when creating a new software because it helps protect the program from potential threats.  Cyber attacks are more prevalent than one may think, "estimates show that there is a cyber attack every 44 seconds throughout the day"(PurpleSec, 2022). Another aspect that is important when constructing a computer application is computer technical support, uses whom use the application may need assistance in navigating the program or help troubleshooting basic components of the program. Bug fixes also fall under computer technical support, constant updates to better the efficiency of the program is key to keep up with competitors and your ever evolving audience.  

Computer applications also depend on basic functions in order to run correctly such as storage, processing and input and output. Without having knowledge of what storage a computer will need to adequately run the computer program a user may experience less than ideal results.  

References:

Network Depot. (2017, March 22). Basic concepts in information technology. Network Depot. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.networkdepot.com/information-technology-concepts/ 

PurpleSec. (2022, October 17). 2022 cyber security statistics trends & data. PurpleSec. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://purplesec.us/resources/cyber-security-statistics/ 

Network Security

The two computer security incidents that will be discussed in this paper are computer viruses and email spam. Email Spam is a very common occurrence to the everyday user, “nearly 85% of all emails are spam” (Cveticanin, 2022), similarly computer viruses are also prevalent “over 560,00 new pieces of malware are detected every day” (Jovanovic, 2022). Computer systems are vulnerable to computer viruses due to design flaws, and or a failure to properly secure a computer. Computer systems are vulnerable to email spam because if an email is sent to a computer the email will usually contain something that will cause the user to click on a link or enter personal information, by participating in the email spam your computer can become vulnerable to spyware that was connected to that email. Common vulnerability issues are “malware, spam, and phishing”(NIBusinessinfo, 2022). 

            Both an email spam and a computer virus can have some of the similar consequences due to the fact that an email spam can also contain a virus. Computer viruses can damage your computer in a variety of way such as exposing personal data, taking over your computer, logging into personal social media platforms and much more. A recommendation for protecting computer systems from email spam is to check the email address that it was sent from, if it is not coming from a trustworthy source than you can choose to delete the email and can also choose to block any other emails that will be sent from that email address. A way to protect a computer system from viruses is to purchase or download a cyber security software than can alert you to any suspicious activity that may be found on your computer. 

 

 

 

References

https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/internet-and-email-security-issues

Cveticanin, N. (2022, July 20). What's on the other side of your inbox - 20 spam statistics for 2022. Dataprot. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://dataprot.net/statistics/spam-statistics/ 

Jovanovic, B. (2022, July 20). A not-so-common cold: Malware statistics in 2022. Dataprot. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://dataprot.net/statistics/malware-statistics/ 

 

 

Computers in the workplace

Computers play a large role in the sales industry , now more than ever. Prior to covid e-commerce was a popular way to shop, however brick and mortar stores where still frequently used by the everyday consumers, when the United States went into a shut down to try to lower the chances of people coming into contact and contracting covid e-commerce saw a huge increase in sales. In my own personal experience , I have utilized computers to completely online orders for my store, check online inventory, order supplies, send emails to corporate and my district manager and even give my customers a complete health regiment to complete their goals. "personal computers have enabled the sales force to deliver high quality customer service" (Ready & WoonBong, 1970).Computers are also utilized for training at my store, with a few clicks on the screen all the nutritional information for a specific product is displayed as well as informational videos to help my understating on said product. I think that electronic devices will change the sales industry in a variety of way in the next 10 years, we are currently seeing a shift now towards utilizing computers to complete task that actual employees would do, for example amazon stores only require you to grab a cart and leave with the item you Paid for all without the interaction of an actual employee. Sales teams will also be able to target their sales audience better by being able to track costumers search history (with permission). 

References: 

Reday, P. A., & WoonBong, N. (1970, January 1). >information technology and the sales function: ACR. ACR Asia-Pacific Advances. Retrieved October 8, 2022, from https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/11863/volumes/ap06/AP-06

Ping and Traceroute

the websites I pinged where google.com, Australia.gov.au, and Japan.go.jp . For google there was 16 packages sent and all of them where received , the Australia website had 9 packets transmitted and all of them where received and none where lost. When I attempted to trace route the Australian website it appeared with a notification that it was an unknown host however the google website showed that its route went from metopes.charter.com then went to spectrum.com. Ping and traceroutes can be helpful in identifying how the websites connects to others, when you ping a website it gives you information about the speed in which it was able to arrive at its destination and if there where to be some packages that where not received that it would tell the user that their is a connection problem. Traceroutes information the user what serves that website will be using to connect to the computer "trace routes shows us the path traffic takes to reach the websites"(Hoffman,2017). A ping request might come back with an error response if there is no connection at all to the destination, or the ping is taking longer than the allowed amount of time. A traceroute may come back with an error because the servers are blocking the connection. 

References:

Hoffman, C. (2017, July 6). How to use Traceroute to identify network problems. How. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.howtogeek.com/134132/how-to-use-traceroute-to-identify-network-problems/

Documenting a day on word, powerpoint, and excel

Introduction 

            This assignment involved me to use applications such as Word processor, PowerPoint presentation, and Excel An application such as word and PowerPoint have been commonly used in my daily activities in order to complete assignments, however Excel is an application that I have never utilized before. This assignment had me overcome several different difficulties and has also caused me to familiarize myself with functions that I have not used on these applications before, I will be reflecting on my experience in this essay.

Word Processor 

            An application such as Word is popular for writing documents such as letters and assignments. Word processor allows the users to change font sizes and styles, use bold, underlined and italicized words and also allows for different choices in bulleted lists. Some advantages of this application is that it is very easy to correct mistakes when writing documents, for example if you accidently delete a sentence word offers a reverse button that will reset your most recent action, word also has “automatic spelling and grammar checker which allows you to choose from different recommended options” (Microsoft, 2022), this is a very helpful tool when writing because it could help the user identify potential grammatical errors in the document. Some disadvantages of this application are that Word can be expensive, luckily the University of Arizona Global campus offers a free membership for its active students, another disadvantage would be adding images to documents, it can be difficult to adjust it correctly on the page therefore I would suggest an application like PowerPoint.

Excel 

            Excel was by far one of the more challenging activities of this assignment, I am not familiar with any of the functions, and I have also not used the application before. Excel was a new experience for me it is a “basic spreadsheet application commonly used for representing tables of data like text or numbers using formulas” (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019). Some disadvantages of the program where all the equations that you must input to get the desired results. Luckily the equations were written out for me for this specific assignment because if they had not been I would have found myself at a loss. Even though this application was difficult to use I can now understand how it can be very beneficial for companies to display their data, once an equation is entered you can easily change any variable in the graph and the equation will recalculate all the data and change all the number and percentages for you. The graph tool is also very helpful to display as a imagine of all your data that you have compiled.

PowerPoint 

            PowerPoint is an application that I have frequently used, it offers a lot of customizability options for the user such as different preset backgrounds, font size and styles, animations, transitions, and much more. Some advantages of PowerPoint specifically when completing a group project is its accessibility and functionality for adding collaborators to the document, this allows more than 2 people to access the document from virtually anywhere and takes away any disadvantages they may face about being geographically far from one another. A disadvantage of PowerPoint would be that some features on the application takes a lot of practice and training to complete, similar to Excel. 

Conclusion

            This assignment has offered me a great refresher on the functions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel applications. Although I did find myself facing some difficulties performing some of the functions, I was able to overcome them by being patient and retrying the function several times. Word will continue to be used by me to complete all of my written assignments and I will use PowerPoints to complete any assignment’s that require me to incorporate imagines, however I will try to avoid the Excel program at all costs. 

 

 References

Microsoft . (n.d.). Microsoft. Microsoft Support. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/check-spelling-and-grammar-in-office-5cdeced7-d81d-47de-9096-efd0ee909227 

Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks.

  

 

 

 

Internet applications

I utilize a variety of social media platforms and for this post I have chosen to write about the social media application called TikTok. I personally use this application several times throughout my day, it offers several different forms of entertainment along with educational videos as well. TikTok started off as being called Musically but later rebranded into the new name that we are all familiar with now. TikTok launched back in "September of 2016 but has risen in popularity , as of July of 2022 the platform has over 1billion active users worldwide" (Mohsin, 2022). 

Usability- The usability of the application is very simple, when a user first creates an account their "for you" page consist of mainly popular videos. The use will begin to favorite the videos that they find interesting,  the application will recommend video based off their preferences. However if a user wants to post a video that has similar editing of those that are popular content creators than they may run into some difficulties because editing can be difficult on the app if someone is not used to all the functions that are available. 

Design- The TikTok platform was designed for sharing, creating and finding new videos posted by several users, the Tik Tok design team says the application "uses a simple UX design with a good layout"(Kazais, 2021). Unlike other video sharing platforms that make you choose what video you would like to see when you open the app, TikTok takes a different approach. TikTok automatically starts a popular video as soon as the app is opened. TikTok also post a limit of 3 minutes which is the maximum allowed time a creator has to record a video, "shorter videos show higher retention rates and are more likely to capture the viewers attention"(Herman, 2020). 

Functionality- The range of operations that can be run on the application is immense, a user can record a video and post it almost instantaneously. Users can also live stream in which the audience can communicate with them as well as send them emojis which in turn lead to money. When using this application you can like, comment and share videos with your family and friends. You can also follow more creators if you like the form of entertainment they provide. 

References:

Herman, E. (2020, November 12). Short video vs. Long Video: Optimizing Video length. Green Buzz Agency. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://greenbuzzagency.com/short-video-vs-long-video-optimizing-video-length/

Kazais, A. (2021, October 1). What makes the UX of Tiktok's feed so successful. Medium. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://uxdesign.cc/what-makes-the-ux-of-tiktoks-feed-so-successful-1c15e7e82dcd

Mohsin, M. (2022, September 15). 10 tiktok statistics you need to know in 2022 [new data]. Oberlo. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics

Programing language

 I had my first interaction with coding In week 1 of this course and my experience was very difficult.  

Introduction 

            For this assignment I have become familiar with the scratch program, “scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and a coding language with a simple visual interface” (Scratch, 2022). This program consists of “blocks” that the user can stack together in order to make their own animation, in this paper I will be writing about my experience with this program and the difficulties that I faced and how I overcame them. 

Experience and Difficulties

This program offers an introductory tutorial video that explain how the program works and the different functions that it has, the tutorial is very simple to understand and gives new users like myself a good comprehension of the program.  Some difficulties I had would be the motion blocks, although the program has a variety of different motions to choose from, I personally struggled with having my animation move at the right time. I did add a dog and a crab animation and I also utilized the cat that was already given to me at the beginning of the project, the customization for  the cat the bear was very self-explanatory and simple. Overall, this project took a lot of time and patience in order to complete, the organization in which I placed the blocks was crucial in order to make the animation do what I wanted it to do. 

 

Conclusion

This assignment has provided me with my first experience into coding and technology. This experience has taken me out of my comfort zone. Although the program was very user friendly and provided me with explanations on how to use their icons, I still found myself facing some difficulties when it came to adding more blocks and making the story make sense. I found myself revise my work several times. Overall, my experience was a great one. 

 

 References

Scratch . (n.d.). About. Scratch. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://scratch.mit.edu/about

Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks.