Unit 2: Doing Business on the Web

In this post I will be discussing four different things involved in doing business on the web. These four things are which services require fast, high quality internet services. I will be investigating local government online, finding out about live chat and finally I will investigate commercial benefits of community websites.

When is There the Need for Speed?

Firstly I will discuss which services require fast and high quality internet access, and I will be explaining why they do. I will go through four examples of thing that will need a fast and high quality internet access. These four things are going to be listening to internet radio, downloading MP3's, downloading videos and buying a basket of 100 goods from an online grocer.

http://blog.phoneslimited.co.uk/

Listening to internet radio definitely requires fast and high quality internet access. Listening to internet radio requires having a speed internet access so people can listen to the broadcast without it buffering. If the person listening to internet radio has a slow internet speed the broadcast will buffer and keep stop and starting, and this will make it impossible to listen to and ruin the experience for the listener. The internet access will also have to be of a high quality. If the internet is of a low quality the listener will not fully be able to hear what is being said on the radio. If the listener wants to have the be able to clearly hear what is being played on the internet radio they will need to have a high quality internet. So if the listener wants the best listening experience they can have they will need an internet connection which has very good quality and also high internet speeds.

I am going to talk about why downloading MP3's and downloading videos require a fast and high quality internet connection. One reason is that downloading these things will be a very slow and boring process without fast internet. If the user has poor internet connection it will take an extremely long time for the film or MP3 to download and they will not be able to watch the film or listen to the song when they want to. Another factor is the quality of the song or film. If the user has a poor quality internet connection they will not be able to download a high quality version of the song or film they want to listen to or watch. This will make the song impossible to listen to and understand, or make the film impossible to watch. This would ruin the experience of the film or song for the viewer.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

 

The final task I am going to discuss which needs a fast and high quality internet is buying 100 goods from an online grocer. Completing this task will require a fast internet speed because if the person attempting to buy 100 goods from an online grocer doesn't, it will take a long time for the to complete the order. If the person ordering the goods has a slow internet speed, downloading these goods will take a long time as it will keep buffering. A high quality internet connection will also help as it would also help the speed of the shopping. In this case the speed of the internet would be more important than the quality.

Investigate Local Government Online

There are multiple different purposes to the Bedford Borough Council website. The main purpose of the website is to show what Bedford is like as a town. The website also shows what opportunities there are in Bedford. These could be tourist attractions for people visiting Bedford, or jobs for people who live in Bedford. There is also local news on the website. This is so people can keep up to date with everything that is going on in the town. There is also an advice page on the website. This is to help people who live in Bedford who are maybe in difficult situations and may need help to get out of them. Mainly the Bedford Borough Council website contains news about Bedford and what is happening in Bedford.

The Bedford Borough Council websites main target audience is people who either live in Bedford or are maybe thinking about moving to live in Bedford. The website has targeted these people because these are the people who will want to know what Bedford has to offer them and also they are the people who will need to know what services Bedford has, for example schools.

The major benefits of this website is that it tells the public everything that is happening in Bedford at that current point in time. This is really good because it keeps everyone up to date with what is happening in Bedford. This helps to provide everyone with equal opportunities as everything they need is there and easy to find. Another big benefit this website has is that the layout is extremely clear and easy to use and navigate. This makes the website more appealing to the users as they will easily and quickly be able to find what they are looking for.

The Bedford Borough Council does not have many weaknesses. One weakness is that it only shows information on Bedford and not the whole of Bedfordshire, but the website is not very clear on this. This can lead to confusion of the customers.

The only improvement I can think of this website making is making it a bit clearer about who the website is aimed at and it could also expand the information to cover the whole of Bedfordshire and not just Bedford.

http://www.bedford.gov.uk/

Live Chat

In this part of the task I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages an internet service provider would have with using a live chat service to help communicate with its customers. Firstly I will discuss the advantages of having a live chat service. The biggest benefit is that the Internet Service provider is able to communicate with its customers extremely easily. This is very good as the provider will be able to ask their customers what the main problems with the internet service they provide are. This will help the internet service provider easily identify the problems they have with their service and will allow them to fix the problem faster. This will allow the internet service provider to have great customer service and it will keep their customers very happy.

http://www.exelanz.com/

Another benefit of an internet service provider using live chat is that the customers can ask questions if they any queries about how something works. This makes the customers feel valued and feel like they are involved. This will keep the customers happy and they will give the provider good reviews. This will market the ISP and will attract more people to use them.

There are also disadvantages to using live chat. One disadvantage is that using a live chat system can make it easy for people to spam the provider. This is waste a lot of the ISP's time and this will be inconvenient for other customers. This spam could be writing things in the live chat which aren't true or giving some of the other customers wrong advice, which will put them off of staying with that ISP.




                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Net Books

An e-book is an electronic version of a book. It is a rich multimedia experience based around textual material or a book. E-books are now available on multiple different formats. All of these formats have their own purposes, features and benefits. Some e-books are simply intended to be just like paper books, but instead of only containing one book, they contain a whole library of books. This makes it much easier for the person reading. This can be available on a computer or a PDA. Other e-books are intended to do much more than what a normal paper book can do. For example more complex e-books can show a film clip to accompany textual description, or play a music file.

Text E-books

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/

These are text document based e-books. These are the most simple type of e-books because all that is necessary to make a text e-book is to write the text into a text editor or to scan it into text from paper using a text converter. This type of e-book is used extensively for computer manuals. This is prior to Adobe's portable document format (PDF) gaining wide acceptance. A text e-book only has text in the descriptions. The main advantage of a text e-book is that it is very simple to create and use. They are also available on all platforms.

Word E-books

Word document books are created using simple word processing software and usually stored in single word processed document file. In this format hyperlinks can be used within the document. This makes it possible to have some multimedia content. However, these files tend to be relatively big, especially when images are used within the e-book. This format is useful in environments where everyone uses the same Microsoft Office software and where multiple authors are required to collaborate on a certain project.

Adobe PDF E-books

Adobe's portable document format (PDF) books are stored in a single PDF file. Nearly all computer and software manuals are now published in this format. These files are usually made in Word, HTML, or some other document printed package that is printed to PDF. A PDF file is designed to store the text and layout in a device independent manner so that the original full colour print layout for text and graphics is maintained regardless of the platform being used to view the file. These files are also much smaller than the files from a word e-book.

Reader E-book

http://tripandtravelblog.com/

Microsoft reader is a free proprietary product designed to be as similar as a reading book as possible. It also gives the reader access to extra facilities, including full searching, the ability to bookmark pages, make notes and have the book read to you. To create a reader e-book you need to write the original content in a word processing software such as Word, and then use a converter or add in program to convert it into the required format. The format is a single encrypted file containing XML data structuring and the content itself.



Website E-book

The most important and flexible format of e-book is that created as a website in an HTML or XHTML format. In a website e-book all the pages are linked together in such a way to simulate a book experience. This is usually done with a table of contents or chapter list. This format allows the richest and most flexible multimedia experience.

Open E-book

The open e-book format takes a different web based approach by simplifying the structure using XML. It puts the content into a single .html file, a document definition in another file and the presentation styles into related CSS files. This format is most useful for books without multimedia content. This is a very flexible format as it get be viewed over the web or downloaded.

Value of E-books

E-books are very useful. The main reason for this is because they allow people to take a library of books around with them instead of just one or two. They can also do a lot more things than normal books. E-books can make it easier and more interesting to read than a normal book.

http://www.e-book.com.au/

Bridging the Gap

There have been numerous initiatives to bridge the gap. This has been sponsored by the national government., local government, private industry and charities. In this post I will look at how UK Online has bridged the gap.

http://www.pendleradio.org/

UK Online is a government project which was started in 2001. UK Online gives computer access to people in the community and helps them learn ICT skills. UK Online's purpose is to help people develop and learn ICT skills, and also to give internet access to people who may not of had it before. This purpose relates to the digital divide because it helps people who cannot access the internet without helps. This closes the divide as it helps more people get internet access.

UK Online's main target clients are people who cannot access a computer, or people who need to learn new IT skills. They do this to offer new and more job opportunities to people who are struggling by offering them IT skills training courses and offering them computer access. A strength of UK Online is that it provides people with a lot more job opportunities. This can help to reduce unemployment in a certain region or country. A weakness is that it cannot reach everybody the company wants to.

http://www.ukonlinecentres.com/

WLAN

http://www.computescotland.com/

WLAN is a group which creates pressure for community wi-fi. These projects are mainly located in schools and offices, places where internet access is desperately needed. WLAN was created to support wi-fi mesh networks for community wireless areas, education and the developing world. This will give more people internet access and therefore help more people learn IT skills and develop their skills. This can eventually reduce unemployment and help an economy as more people have extra skills. WLAN do have an impact on the digital divide as they give more people access to the internet and therefore more people will be able to use digital equipment. As more people have access to the internet, this closes the digital divide gap.

http://www.wlan.org.uk/

Tackling the Divide on the Ground

ICT can be very empowering. Simply putting a community IT centre or an IT kiosk in a central point of a village can provide masses of people with access to wider information and communication through internet, like email, and mobile telephony. These facilities can then be used to educate people and change people's lives in these villages.

Broadcasting

Digital broadcasting is a great example of both empowering technology and the political barriers that may stall the elimination of the digital divide. Satellite broadcasting enables geographically remote areas to receive important news and information. This would have been an impossible task to achieve before satellite broadcasting started. Therefore this has helped people like farmers receive information about their crops and therefore benefited a lot of people in these rural areas. Before this satellite broadcasting was introduced in rural areas villagers used a slow and unreliable internet source to communicate. They now have access to high internet speeds and quality, and also a wider range to communicate. This provides people living in this rural areas access to better education and entertainment.

http://www.satnews.com/

By using wireless base stations the internet access can reach players which it couldn't of done before hand. For example with the wireless base stations the people who live in areas deep inside jungles and mountains will have internet access and will be able to communicate through the internet.

Using satellite broadcasting can also be seen as a major problem in some areas in the Middle Eastern and North African regions. This is because the digital broadcasting will enable people to have easy access to digital television, and this is what is seen a the problem. This is because digital television allows people to have an easy access to western values, which are not seen as a good thing universally, and particularly in religious areas.

Mobile Phones

http://landginternational.net/ 

Since rural areas in places like Pakistan and Bangladesh introduced the cellular or mobile phone, life in these rural areas has improved drastically. The main reason for this is because the use of mobile phones has made communicating over long distances much easier and faster because of the wireless connections it has introduced. Mobile phones have been extremely popular in these areas, as they are very useful pieces of equipment and make everyday life easier for the citizens in these areas. In April 2004 oneworld.net reported "mobile phone users will double next year, outnumbering fixed-line customers for the first time." This shows that the use of mobile phones in these rural areas has been very useful and important for people. The report then goes on to say "this is marking a new era of communications in the poverty stricken nation" This statement maybe suggests that these more rural areas of countries are catching up, in regards to technology, with the rest of the country or region.

Governance

The level of technology some poorer countries have to use is mainly because of the government. This is because the state is often the main or even only telecommunications provider in poor countries and they charge monopoly prices for the services it provides, which prevents other organisations from providing competitive services. There are also sometimes high tariffs on importing high technology, and this can make it difficult for the poorer countries to get hold of the more advanced technology. This is because the country will not have enough money to pay for technology so the people who live there will not be able to use it.  The is a problem the government to deal with and the government can struggle a lot with this problem. Successful methods of dealing with this problem include setting up as a free trade zone. In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai Internet City has been set up like this. This method is used to encourage ICT investment throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa. On the occasion this strategy uses Dubai as a hub.

Unit 2: Working With Databases

In this task I will be showing example of working with a database. The program I am going to be using to complete this task is Microsoft Access.

Here is a screenshot of the original database I am going to be using. The are 492 different attractions on the datasheet. Throughout the task I will narrow this number down. This narrowing down process is used to make it easier to locate and find what you are looking for within the database. This is helpful as there are so many different things in a database that it would be extremely time consuming if you couldn't filter it down.

This screenshot is the original database but it has been narrowed down to only show the attractions with an entry fee of less than £8.50. There are now 368 different attractions showing and this is 124 less than in the original database.

 

Here is a screenshot of all of the attractions the the in the East Anglia region. There are 61 different attractions which are shown in the list above. So this screenshot shows I have shortened the list of attractions by finding the ones specifically in this region.

 

 

In this screenshot I have narrowed the database down by using two search preferences. The first preference is the price. I have searched all of the attractions that cost more than £5. This function can be used to identify the attractions in someones specific price range. The second search preference I have used in the region South East. This can be used to find out the what the attractions are near where someone lives. This function makes it extremely easy to do this. By using more than one search preference you can massively shorten the amount of results so it is easier to find what you are looking for.



Unit 2: E-Commerce Online Shopping

 

The website I have decided to use to show e-commerce online shopping is amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/). I chose to use amazon because it is a popular website for purchases goods online. As the screenshot shows I have clicked on the sign in button in the top right hand corner first. The button is clear and easy to find, which makes it easier for the customers. On this page amazon are advertising the most popular goods they are selling at that moment. This is to persuade people to buy more goods from amazon so they can make more money.

 

 

After pressing the sign in button, if you do not already have an account you will need to create one and register to the website. To do this firstly you will need to put your name and email address in, and then make a password. This is really simple and easy to do. In the top right hand corner there is an advert to buy mother's day gifts from Amazon. This is used to persuade people to buy gifts and as it is near mother's day it will make people buy the goods.

 

The next screen that comes up shows your account details. These details are laid out in a clear way so they are easy to read. This also shows that you have finished completing your account. On this page you can decide on the payment methods and see your account history which is useful as you may want to re-check what you have previously looked at.

This screenshot shows how you would select which item you would like to purchase from Amazon. As an example I have used a football. Here it shows a description of the item yu wish to buy and this tells you whether it is the right item for you. Here you casn clearly see the price of the item and you can also choose the amount you wish to purchase. On this example it shows that there are multiple colours of the football, and you can select which colour you want. In the to right hand corner there is a blue box. This is where you "add the item to your basket" so it can be paid for later on in the process. On this webpage there are also adverts of similar products or products that people who bought the football also bought. This is used to persuade the customers into buying more than one thing at a time, and therfore spend more money.

This page is simply a confirmation saying you have added the item to your baset. However ther are also similar goods advertyised to persuade you to  buy more. In this case all of the goods advertised are related to football as the goods I added to my basket is a football.

This webpage is telling you to resign in before you buy the product. This is to make sure it is your account and no-one else is using it. There are no adverts on this page as it is serious and wants you to just put the details in and sign in.

This page is aking for you to put the address you wish the product to be delivered to in. This is so they can find out where you live so they can deliver the good to you. There are also no adverts on this page as the owners of this website do not want the customer to get distracting while going through this process because if they do they will not be able to deliver the good to the customers, and therefore will not get any money from them.

This page is a confirmation of your address details. Amazon do this so they can double check if the details are correct. This is because if the details are wrong and the product is delivered to the worng place the compnay will not be paid for delivering the product and will not be paid.

This page asks you to choose how quickly you want the product delivered. This is to help the company know how long they have to deliver the good and how quickly they need to deliver it. This page is made for customers benefits because it helps the customers recieve the goods quicker than usual.

 

 

This is the final stage of the process. In the stage the compnay asks for your payment details so they can recieve the money for the product. Without this they would not get paid. After this stage the product is then delivered to the customer.



Crime and Crime Prevention

Spam Texting

Spam texting is when you receive countless number of messages from unknown numbers, advertising products or telling you that you have a claim you never heard about from an accident you've never been in. Also you can often get messages convincing you that you have won a ridiculous amount of money however you have to send them a few hundred quid before you can collect it. Of course those are just a few most popular examples and there are a lot more types of messages you can receive.

Years ago, spam texing wasn't as big of a problem as it is now. This is due to mobile phones and the internet becoming more popular. People order things over the internet more often and therefore give away their personal details. The companies then use that information to spam you with texts and messages advertising themselves and their products. There are also lots of pop up ads coming up when you surf the internet, allowing you to enter competitions to win all sorts of new technology but as usual they need all your contact details which are then used to spam you.

What You Can Do to Stop Unwanted Texts

• Do not display your mobile phone number or email address in public.
• Be careful about giving out your mobile phone number, email address, or any other personal information. Make sure to read through and understand the entire transmitting form. Some websites allow you to opt out of receiving email from partners – but you may have to uncheck a preselected box if you want to do so. Make sure to check for a privacy policy when submitting your wireless phone number or email address to any website. Find out if the policy allows the company to sell your information.

•  Check with your mobile service provider about options to block future text messages from specific senders.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and-email

How has technology changed how crime is committed and prevented

Types of technological crimes:

• Telemarketing fraud.
• Nigerian letter or "419" fraud.

• Identity theft.
• Credit card fraud.
• Counterfeit prescription drugs.

• Ponzi schemes.

• Investment schemes.
• Use of minors in sexually oriented material.

https://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/543489/Technology-opens-new-doors-for-new-crimes.html?nav=5252

Crime Prevention

– CCTV

– street lighting

– citizen protection devices(e.g. mace, tasers)

– metal detectors,

– ignition interlock systems(drunk drivers)

– Threat assessment instruments

– risk assessment instruments

– Bullying ID protocol

– sex offender registration

– risk assessment prior to involuntary civil commitment

– profiling potential offenders

– facial recognition software used in conjunction with CCTV

Police

– Improved police protection devices(helmets, vests, cars, buildings)

– Improved/new weapons

– less than lethal force (mobile/ riot control)

– computers in squad cars

– hands free patrol car control (Project 54)

– offender and citizen ID’s via biometrics/fingerprints

– mobile data centers

– video in patrol cars

– Crime mapping (hot spots)

– Crime analysis (e.g. COMPSTAT)

– Criminal history data systems enhancement

– Info sharing w/in CJS and private sector

– New technologies to monitor communications(phone, mail, internet) to/from targeted individuals

– Amber alerts

– Creation of watch lists of potential violent offenders

– gunshot location devices

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/238011.pdf